


tPoM

by stormygreen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-04-07 23:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 134,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14091831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormygreen/pseuds/stormygreen
Summary: thanks for doing this lol





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for doing this lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PRINCIPLE OF MOMENTS

 

By Esmie Jikiemi

 

 

(Sci-Fi Fantasy and Historical Fantasy)

 

you guys are the best thanks for reading x

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

_‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’_

_Oscar Wilde_

 

 

 

_‘Courage is the first of human virtues because it makes all other possible.’_

_Aristotle_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue

 

 

 

Once, there was a girl born amid chaos. It was the end of an empire, ideals shattering and monuments crumbling as she took her first dust-choked breath. Her eyes remained stubbornly shut, and so she did not see the violence of the world for what it was.

Marble disintegrated, and pillars cracked, precious gems falling from the ceiling to clatter on the floor as their fastenings melted in the heat.

The girl’s mother gathered her to her chest with shaking arms, pushing sweat soaked hair off her face and gazing at her daughter with a blind sense of all-encompassing wonder. She marveled at the child’s waving hands, curled into fists, fingers as delicate as the bones of a bird, wrists chubby and dimpled.

_If only her father could see her now._

But her daughter’s father was long dead, and before that had been an outcast who the girl’s mother should not have met and should never have loved in the way she did, so this was difficult a thought, and one that she pushed quickly aside.

The cracking of stone and the deadened sound of falling ash faded into the background as she moved her fingers to the artery running along the side of her daughter’s neck. Fingers brushed downy hair as she felt around for a pulse. It wasn’t hard to locate, the sudden flutter against her fingertips like a moth’s wings. She marveled at this new life, this child that might not see the sunrise, and yet was so full of light, simply because she did not know what the sunrise would bring.

Her mother knew though, so she pulled herself to her knees. She had never felt pain like this, yet she stood, because if she did not then her daughter never would. The palace was collapsing, the hallways groaning and crumbling around her, but she walked on. Her daughter, swaddled in fine cloth, cradled in her arms.

There was a ship waiting for them in the atrium, its powerful headlights cutting through the clouds of white dust in the air.

The Queen of a planet whose people were fighting the bloodiest war in three millennia pushed her daughter into the only holding pod of the spacecraft and closed the door.

The Queen of a planet whose people were fighting the bloodiest war in three millennia _and losing_ , collapsed to the granite floor of her castle and wept for her daughter. Her daughter who was the sole heir to the throne, and the last hope of their race. Her daughter who was already flying across the galaxy towards a new life, inside a cryopod where she would sleep for a hundred years. Her daughter, who would grow up abandoned and confused, never to inherit the crown that was hers.

 

 

 

 

                                                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [city: The Lower Quarter]  +  [time: 6078]

 

 

 

 

The smoky scent of incense filled the temple, clouds of it drifting from the burners and rising towards the crystal oculus set into the dome of the roof. The smoke coiled against the glass, making the light hazy and destroying any chance of a glance at freedom. Asha Dhaka was knelt in prayer, her hands splayed on the mat in front of her, mouth chanting the sacred words of petition and invocation graven unwillingly on her memory since birth. Her heart beat steadily in time with the rhythm, her hands opened and closed, mirrored by the hundreds of others in the temple. Her mind, however, was somewhere else entirely.

Tiny words were scrolling across her vision—the first lines of the eightieth chapter of an aeronautics manual she had hacked right out of the government’s system in the early hours of the morning.

Her head hurt—partly from reading the miniature text, and partly from trying to wrap her head around complex mathematical theory in the middle of a temple during deference recitation.

The service ended.

_Thracin bless us, may he rule forever; Divine Right is Divine Might._

_Divine Right is Divine Might._

_Divine Right is Divine Might._

The maxim of their government and religion and ruler rang out in whispered reverence through the assembled body of people. Asha’s skin prickled. She felt observed, but when did she not?

Blinking rapidly, she cleared the manual’s script from her vision. Her eyes ached as her depth perception swam back into being. The headache threatening behind her eyes was only intensifying, but it was worth it. One day it would all be worth it.

 _“Thracin bless us,”_ she murmured, then rolled up her mat and stood, joining the line of people shuffling towards the exit.

There was a commotion ahead. Asha looked up, moving her eyes without turning her head. A woman had fallen, collapsing between the rows of worshippers to lie unmoving on the ground. Unconscious due to exhaustion, Asha diagnosed. It was not uncommon amongst them; frail bodies falling to the sandy ground of an unsafe factory, a child’s keening wails as it tugged at an unmoving parent’s sleeve, a man’s breathing, thick with dust and chemical particles, sounding like an alarm. _Warning: conditions unfit for Human life. Miserable existences permissible._

Hulking Lithian guards were already shouldering their way towards the accident, weapons in hand, scaled limbs bunched with muscle and desperate for a fight. One of them kicked the woman with a clawed foot, sneering as she groaned weakly and began to cry. Asha looked at him. A Lithian. Soldiers of the Consortium. A race of monsters and sadists, who held blaster rifles in clawed hands like they’d been born to use them, grease-slick navy scales glittering the sunlight—body armor provided free of charge by evolution.

Keeping her face carefully blank was second nature, the dullness in her eyes less a learned protective mechanism than a byproduct of a life lived in terror. A second Guard swung back the rod he carried, his arm falling down to strike the weeping woman with it. The bright crackle of raw electricity flashed in the dim light, turning the woman’s soft weeping into convulsive, agonized screams.

“What are you?” the Guard hissed, teeth gnashing. “ _What are you_?”

“Nothing,” the woman gasped. “I am nothing.”

The Guard unleashed another burst of electricity and flickered a fork tongue.

“That’s right.”

The man who stood next to Asha shook his head in disgust, but even that movement was subdued. His eyes met hers, looking for someone to share in his disdain, in this small act of moral rebellion. She recognized him. He worked two rows across from her in the factory on textile recycling day. He was a bit of a trouble maker—something which immediately endeared him to Asha, even though the most basic sense of self-preservation should have ensured that it didn’t.

She held his eye. Nodded. Of course, she did. No universe existed in which she did not.

 

***

 

The light of the midday suns blazed brightly above her as the last of her line was released into the temple’s courtyard. The shimmering hexagons of the Terradome that enclosed her oasis-centered settlement were busy filtering out the harmful UV rays and extreme temperatures that were par for the course on a terraformed desert planet such as Gahraan.

 _That should be our motto_ , she thought wryly. _Never meant to support life but supporting it begrudgingly anyway._ Pausing by the stone steps behind the outdoor altar, she glanced at the building behind her. The temple was a glorious, beautiful thing. Soaring columns and glittering arches, all lovingly carved in Emperor Thracin’s name. The walls were cloudy crystal, their surfaces highly polished and smoother than silk. The oculus refracted the light of the suns, throwing it in a million directions, shards of white light like solar flare blooming on the dusty ground.  It was perhaps the only beautiful thing on the surface of the ugly, resented, stolen planet that Asha called home. A beacon of belief and faith—a monument to Commander Thracin and the Empire he built to save the galaxies from damnation.

Commander Thracin who was a shining light against the darkened blight of the Great War that had ravaged the systems now under his total and complete rule. Commander Thracin who had rescued them from the dangerous allure of savagery and barbarism, and shown them religion, shown them true civilization. Commander Thracin who had built temples out of thracinite—a rare and shining crystal of obscure origin—in every city under his rule and asked only that they deify and worship him in return.

The words came to her as though a priest spoke directly into her mind. _Thracin bless us._ He was their Lord and their Savior. Wasn’t it because of him that the Humans of the planet had been given the afternoon off today? They were supposed to be celebrating the anniversary of Thracin’s ascension to the throne and rejoicing in the salvation he offered them… except, this wasn’t kindness or lenience. No, this was part of his subtler, more sinister psychological war against those he deemed requiring of subdual. They worked for him constantly, churning out weapons for his armies, parts for his warships, never allowed to break unless he said so. And when did he say so? Only when he wanted them to celebrate the day he’d given himself the power to take away the free will of their forbearers and doom their whole race to a life of service.

Asha resisted the urge to spit.

Commander Thracin was a tyrant.

Grabbing her hoverboard, she powered it on and pushed off, letting the warm wind strip the corrupted prayer from her skin and the smell of her oppressor’s incense from her hair.

She glided down the slope of the hill and into the main square of the city. Priests in white robes congregated by the path towards the temple, as kids her age streamed out of the doors of the factory, their faces prematurely lined, hands rough and calloused, backs bent and necks stooped from working the production lines all day and most nights. These were the people she had grown up knowing and would die knowing, too _. How many of us born in the same year will lie side by side on the hot metal of the incinerator floor when the time comes?_ she thought _. Who will be first? Last? How many more scars and missing limbs will there be? How many more hearts broken under the weight of unfulfilled dreams?_ The thoughts infuriated her, as did most things. Surely, she couldn’t be blamed for wanting more than the inevitable routine of a life lived bound in service to someone she would never meet?

“Hey.”

She turned. It was Xiulan, the sweet-faced yet startlingly nihilistic girl who was assigned the place next to Asha on weapons manufacturing days.

“Hey bench partner,” she replied. “What’s up?”

“Eh, nothing much. I was about to grab a bite from the downtown vendors, maybe catch a sim in the ED. Wanna come with?”

Asha rolled her eyes. Meals on Gahraan were strictly rationed and only handed out at certain times form militantly guarded ration stations. There was definitely no such thing as ‘downtown’ or an ‘ED’—short for Entertainment District—either.

“Please stop quoting illegally downloaded BroadCast films at me in public, Xiulan.”

Xiulan rolled her eyes, blowing black hair out of her eyes in a long-suffering sigh.

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” she groaned. “Hey, the ‘Human Rights’ activists have set up in the square again. Wanna watch ‘em for a bit before they get arrested?”

Asha shook her head, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

Xiulan shrugged.

“Yeah, okay, whatever. Let’s go.”

 

***

 

 “Sapiens _are_ sentients!”

“Good enough for _slavery_ but not for _citizenship_?”

Asha and Xiulan had parked themselves across the street from the group of protesters, standing under the shade of an awning, and watching in morbid fascination as the activists hawked their rhetoric to anyone who would listen.  

 “Your empire was built off our backs and our blood. Our gods and our beliefs were stripped away and so was our citizenship,” one man shouted angrily. “You know this, and yet you deny us our citizenship out of an unimaginable, unlimited greed for free labor, for subservience and deference that we have _no choice_ but to provide. Sentients everywhere walk freely, at liberty to do what they please with their lives, and yet we are not, because our race is too young? Because our IQ’s are too low? Because we did not fight in the Great War?” The man spat on the ground. “You cannot indenture an entire race simply because we unwittingly took land that did not belong to us.”

He was talking about Gahraan.

Xiulan harrumphed, “He has a point. _How_ are we still paying for this piece of crap planet? With our lives, no less? Like, fucking _take it_ , man. Just kick us off, make us find somewhere else. I’m sure as hell entirely unattached. Wouldn’t mind in the slightest.”

Asha kicked at the dusty ground, sand grains scratching against the stone, and thought, as she often did, about leaving. About breaching the atmosphere and surging onwards, onwards, until Gahraan was just a speck of light in her rearview cams, and she had the whole galaxy ahead of her, ready to let her be whoever she wanted.

“We,” continued the man, “were _desperate_. Our ship was falling apart, carrying the last of the Human race aboard it, and so when we saw this sandy wreck of a planet, we mistook it for a miracle. We did not know about interplanetary conventions and bylaws. We had barely encountered sentient life yet.”

Asha and Xiulan winced, knowing where the story was headed.

“So, of course, we terraformed the first compatible planet we encountered. This one. How could we have known that it was owned by Ai’Varek Thracin—a mere general then? How could we have known that he would rise through the ranks, emerging victorious as the new leader of sentients everywhere. _Emperor_ Thracin.” The man curled his lip in disdain. “How could we have known we would spend the rest of our lives paying for what we had taken in ignorance?”

Asha cast her eyes downwards. The man looked half crazed, but he was telling the truth. _The truth_. A dangerous game to play—especially on these streets. People had been killed for far less.

“Every day we ask you to bless us. We whisper supplication in the temples you herd us into like livestock and beg for your blessing at altars we never asked for or wanted! You cannot say that you saved us all from the barbarism of war, only to commit barbaric acts yourself every day that we remain your _possessions_.”

Asha wondered how long it would take for him to be arrested. It was sad, really, the way the activists still thought they could change anything. _Haven’t you heard?_ She wanted to ask. _Humans are scum. We’re nothing more than free labour and cannon fodder. Go home to your families. Nothing’s getting changed in this lifetime or the next._

Next to her, Xiulan sighed, and Asha knew what she was feeling. This was just another reminder that this was their lot in life. They had stacked parts of machinery in a factory all day, their whole lives. They would continue stacking those same parts until they became too weak or too sick or too old or looked at a Guard wrong and were disposed of. It made Asha want to scream, or throw something, or stab someone—preferably someone whose name rhymed with ‘basin’—but she couldn’t. There were a lot of things she couldn’t do though, so she was used to it. That didn’t mean it didn’t make her angry. _Angry_ was Asha’s second skin, one she hadn’t taken off in years. It was coded into her DNA, right alongside _survive_ and _by any means necessary_.

A piercing note rang out in the square, blaring from the speakers on the walls. Their ‘free time’ was over.

Xiulan smiled ruefully at her. “Guess I’ll see you next week, bench partner. Yay for weapons assembly day.”

Asha smiled back. “See you then Xiulan, stay safe.”

Xiulan nodded and waved, turning to move with the crowd streaming out of the square’s west exit. Asha watched until she was out of sight, a familiar sadness settling on her shoulders.

_Yay for weapons assembly day._

She wanted to scream, to shake someone, to point at the sky that lay beyond the dome and shout _don’t you want that? ‘Cause I do! I do. This life is killing us. Killing us, day by identical fucking day, and the best we can do is as we’re told, and mutter curses in private, and share conspiratorial eye contact and preach to the converted on street corners, and I can’t do it anymore! I can’t. And I know I’m not the only one._

She powered on her hoverboard, the man’s furious shouts fading as she flew down an alley. Smoke billowed out of the back of factory 7A as something smashed and someone swore, extended and filthy. She grinned at that besides herself and changed gears, slowing her pace and ducking into the alleyway behind the Gahraan Aeronautical Academy. The black and white banners of the Consortium billowed in the breeze, but the school itself was empty. All the students returned home to celebrate the holy day. 

The school wasn’t open for Humans, of course. It was a boarding school for the talented children of the quadrant’s elite. Asha had no idea why they put it on such an outlying planet—and a Human inhabited one at that. Probably something about disgusting conditions and character building. Although, she had heard a theory that they were forced to use Gahraan by necessity, as it boasted one of the most densely packed and dangerous asteroid belts in the quadrant—a perfect obstacle course for examinations.

_Nice for some._

Narrowing her eyes at the guards, she tried to determine which species of sentient was hidden under either of their visors. By the bulky, muscle bound frames and thick, powerful tails coiled by their legs, she suspected they were Agolith. An Agolith was less likely to kill you for a mouthing off than a Lithian was, but Asha still despised them. They were employed as contracted mercenaries by Emperor Thracin’s government, and deployed as soldiers to put down rebellions, or uprisings, or general unrest, wherever it might spring up. Apparently, they also did security work now, too. In all fairness, the Academy contained so much valuable tech that it simply wasn’t feasible to leave it unguarded at any time. If they left it unattended even for a night, they would return to find it gutted like a fish, the incredibly valuable entrails of which would be for sale on the black market by dawn. Eyeing the powerful looking blaster guns grasped in their hands, she picked up her pace, and soon she was gliding around the corner.

The east side of the school took up an entire block. Asha marveled at the sleek concrete buildings, the classrooms with their gleaming holoports and aviation diagrams. The intricate, delicate models of spacecraft and fighter jets that hung, suspended in flight, from the ceiling. She sighed, remembering when she had dreamed of a world where aeronautical school was her future, until reality had arrived like a slap to the face and she had remembered that it never would be. _You gotta roll with the punches Ash._ Her mother’s voice echoed softly in the back of her mind. _Life goes on. Work hard, hustle, and maybe, just_ maybe _, you’ll have your own ship one day, government diploma or not._ Citizen _or not._

Asha allowed herself to wonder if the sight of the place would ever stop cutting her so deeply every time. She turned away, dust blowing up behind her, and took the shortcut past the prison to the darker, meaner streets of the Lower Quarter. Her mother was expecting her home.

***

A figure much taller than average, much taller than _natural_ , was standing in her street. At first Asha didn’t even see them. Dark, skulking figures were easily lost in the grime on the walls and the shadows in doorways. The curfew floodlights didn’t even turn on in this part of the city anymore. A long, black cloak rendered the figure shapeless, putting Asha immediately on edge. Jumping off her board and powering it down, she stepped into a doorway, tucking her board under her arm and pulling her cap lower over her face as she went. Watching from two doors down she frowned as the person knocked on the door to her house.

Asha’s heart jumped into her mouth. They _never_ got visitors they didn’t know, and her mother was home alone. What if it was the government? Racking her brains, Asha tried to come up with a comprehensive list of all the things they had both potentially done wrong in the past few weeks. What could possibly warrant a visit from a government official? Although, she thought, narrowing her eyes with suspicion, the person didn’t look very official. She scanned the visitor’s cloak for any identifying signs—gang symbols, guild badges, even the stitching might have clued her in—but it was dark, and she saw nothing. Her stomach dropped, her palms felt clammy. Asha’s mother, Anila, wasn’t weak—far from it, but still…

Groaning softly in frustration, Asha strained her eyes against the darkness.

The door opened.

Asha was too far away to hear what her mother said, but something in her face made Asha pause. Her expression was closed off, her eyebrows drawn. Anila shook her head, exasperated, before handing the stranger something too small for Asha to see. The stranger reached into an inside pocket and delicately withdrew an envelope with a slender, gloved hand. Anila took it and shoved it down the front of her apron, before turning on her heel and slamming the door in the cloaked figure’s face.

Except the door didn’t quite close. Moving faster than Asha would’ve thought possible, the figure shoved one booted foot in between the door and its frame. Asha watched as the stranger’s hand shot out and grabbed her mother by the neck, lifting her off her feet.

Asha’s heart stopped. Adrenaline pooled in her gut and the dark street in front of her grew a little darker as anger clouded her vision. Her switchblade burned a hole in her pocket, the fury that simmered constantly under her skin threatening to boil over. She blinked once, slowly. The world restarted.

 _Oh no you don’t._  

“Hey!” she shouted. “What the _hell_ are you doing?” She was out of the doorway and advancing on the stranger before her conscious mind caught up with her feet. Her mother’s eyes widened, her fingers scrabbling at the gloved hand still clasped around her neck. She mouthed something at her daughter, but Asha couldn’t make it out. She didn’t care. Whoever that was was going to let go of her mother, or they were going to die.

Then, while Asha was still three paces away, Anila kicked the stranger in the stomach. The figure dropped her mother, who landed in a crumpled heap on the landing. Doubling over in pain, the stranger cursed, but not in the Universal Dialect. The sound was harsh and grating, all throat and teeth. Asha recoiled slightly. Getting the distinct impression that her mother had either done something very brave or very stupid she watched on, stunned, as the figure turned and slipped into a side street.

Asha’s board was unfolded and powered up before he had taken two steps. Voltage hummed beneath her feet, jumpstarting her heart. She pushed off the ground. Inhaled, exhaled.

_Oh, it was on._

The figure’s silhouette flickered behind some dripping laundry. A mangy cat skittered out of the way of an indistinct form, hissing, its hackles raised. Coat tails swished behind a stall selling counterfeit tech. A flock of birds took flight in the wake of a dark shadow. Asha dodged beggars and wove through crowds, her neighbours stepping aside out of reflex and cursing her back.

A cloaked head bobbed above the rest of the crowd for a moment. It was too far; the crowds were too dense.

 _He was going to get away_.

Aiming her board right at the wall of the alley she accelerated. Hours of work spent on modifications and stolen parts grasped in sweaty palms kicked in. Her board’s center of gravity shifted, and she shot up the surface of the wall. Braces snapped around her shoes, anchoring her in place. Her tool belt glowed to life, calibrating with the board and tightening to keep her perpendicular to the wall, and her hips above her feet. Her head swam with the sudden change of perspective, but she powered on. Shifting her balance, she rode her board above the heads of the people, her gaze homing in on the figure who moved like liquid shadow. He was turning down a street that Asha had found out the hard way was a dead end.

_Gotcha._

She slid down the wall and glided to a silent stop in the mouth of the dark alley. Dropping as silently as the big cats that lurked on the edges of the deserts during the dry season, she touched down onto the sandy street. Her board folded onto her belt. The stranger was crouching by a parked desert bike, which told Asha he definitely wasn’t from here; no one on Gahraan was licensed to drive one of those, let alone afford it.  

Then, several things happened at once.

Asha’s heel snapped a piece of broken pottery, the sound sending a sharp _crack_ through the alleyway.  She inhaled sharply, flinching as the hooded stranger jerked their head to look at her, cloak slipping off to reveal sickly yellow skin and a skull punctured with spiky tattoos. The eyes looking into hers glowed a sickly, radioactive green.

Asha gasped. Her shock turned the world around her into static. Sound ceased to exist. The only thing that mattered was the irrefutable fact that this sentient was not Human. And yet she had followed them, _cornered_ them in an alleyway like she had the right to even breath in their direction un-commanded.  

White-hot terror burned away the horror and revulsion that had pooled in her lungs. This sentient could kill her if they wanted. They would face no legal repercussions. There would be no trial, no attempt at justice. The government would burn her body in the mass crematorium before the sun rose, and her mother would never speak of her again in public, forced to mourn behind closed doors. Asha’s throat was dry, her heart pounding. She had no plan, no way of escaping this situation, and still the sentient’s eyes burned into hers, green and faintly luminescent. Bile rose in her throat, her legs felt weak.

The creature lurched forward, arms outstretched, and Asha didn’t think, she _acted._ Diving to the side, she rolled across the dusty floor. All the wind was knocked out of her, but she scrambled to her feet, coughing, and unhooked her hover board from her belt. She briefly stopped to consider the repercussions: die right here, right now, at the hand of her self-proclaimed superior, or burn peacefully in a chemically induced slumber tomorrow after the body was found. It wasn’t really a choice.

Putting as much force behind it as she could summon, she hurled it at the strange creature’s legs. After that, things descended swiftly into the chaos of the unexplainable.

A flash of white light lit up the street as Asha’s board was hurled backwards as though bounced off a forcefield, slamming into her stomach and knocking the wind from her lungs. She gagged, pressing her back to the alley wall in an attempt to stay upright, her knees shaking and vision blurring.

Cold, bony fingers wrapped around her neck.

“You would dare attack me, Human?”

The alien’s face was inches from her own. He spat the word out violently, disgusted, and Asha hated that she flinched at that. Hated how ashamed she felt. Her hands shook—with terror partly, but mostly with fury. Her switchblade pressed against the back of her thigh where it was trapped by the wall. If she could just—

The alien’s grip tightened. Through the bleary haze of her vision, she saw something like recognition pass over his face.

“ _Oh_ ,” the alien breathed, and Asha had faked reverence every day, but years of practice had never gotten her this close to the real thing. “You’re the other one,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

She stared.

“You’re the other daughter. The one who—”

Asha stabbed forward, her switchblade punching through fabric and slicing through flesh.

The alien’s eyes widened. Even as she felt blood spill warmly onto her hand, she felt no guilt. An eye for an eye was the way she saw it. No, her mother hadn’t died, but when the alien’s hands had closed around Anila’s neck Asha had glimpsed a version of her life where she was completely and utterly alone. That was enough.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she whispered.  “You’re not from the government, you’re not a guard. You—You strangled my mother. She could have _died_ and then I would be _alone_. I could kill you for that. I should kill you.”

The alien’s eyes were still wide, shocked and uncomprehending. He reminded Asha of the first time she had seen a desert cat struck dead by a laser from a blaster rifle. Animals at the top of the food chain clearly found it difficult to conceptualize being threatened, but intimidation had always been her go to strategy, and so she pressed the advantage despite the nausea rising in her throat. Growing up in the grimy streets of the Lower Quarter every day was a lesson in survival. Pretend you’re something to be afraid of, and soon people will start to believe you. Soon _you_ will start to believe you.

“Or, you and I could come to an agreement. You tell me what your business is here, answer a few of my questions, and I—I let you go.” She was so scared it was getting harder to breathe. She swallowed.  “How does that sound?”

The alien didn’t reply. Asha sighed in frustration and fear. His eyes were vaguely Human when you stared at them for long enough. His teeth on the other hand, bared in a grimace and glistening menacingly, were curved needles. The front of his robe felt wet around her hand.

“Or I could slit your throat and leave you for the Guard to find. If the desert cats don’t get to you first, that is.” She forced a grin “I hear they’ll eat anything.”

The alien groaned, and then seemed surprised by the sound, as though the experience of pain was an entirely foreign concept to him.

 _Welcome to my world,_ Asha thought.

“I’ll tell you,” he wheezed, and she felt the blood seep faster. She cast a glance at the wound and fought to keep her breathing even. She was no stranger to the sight of blood, but this was different somehow. Black and viscous. The word came to her mind, unbidden. _Alien._ She jerked involuntarily, the knife slipping further into rubbery flesh. He let out another gurgling cry, eyes drawing tight at the corners.

 He was dying. Asha felt cold and sick.

“Just—” the blood bubbled. “Just put the knife away if you don’t know how to use it, girl. I am the sentinel of The Auspex Order.” His eyes fluttered closed. When he reopened them, they were scarlet. “Your mother has been lying to you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

 

Obi Amadi was on a mission.

The place was London, the year was 1812. The Napoleonic Wars were spilling blood and cannon smoke over the fields of Europe, while the king of England had already lost the American colonies and was in the process of losing his mind. The French army had set their sights on Russia and were marching in; a tragically finite stream of summer uniforms spilling onto frozen ground. On a railway in Leeds, the first steam locomotive was building speed and chugging soot-thick steam into a slate grey sky. The last of Earl Elgin’s looted Marbles were sliding across marble floors and into storage—an ancient temple dissected and removed from its natural habitat to stand incomplete in a museum for hundreds of lonely, lonely years. In the midst of all this, however, Obi Amadi was searching for one thing, and one thing only. If everything went according to plan he would imminently be gone from both this revolutionary time and place with a highly valuable artifact in tow. If he didn’t, he risked being set back hundreds of years, likely losing another limb to the virus consuming his body piece by piece.

Procuring said artifact was proving to be more difficult than initially predicted.

He pondered this as he watched the passersby. Ladies in lilac coloured lace held parasols whimsically above pearl studded curls as children in collared frocks laughed and ran around statues, hiding behind bushes. A father flourished a gold coin out of an inside pocket and bestowed it upon his chubby-fingered son. The smiling boy was pick-pocketed mere moments later but still… the casual, carefree nature the families exuded so effortlessly made something stick in Obi’s throat. It was the way they seemed to have their own center of gravity—all of them like planets turning in their orbits, rotating calmly on their axes.

Someone had once remarked that perhaps Obi’s axis had been knocked loose.

He turned away from the milling crowds, slipping into the winding alleyway that would deliver him to Westminster Bridge.

If he could just obtain this artifact and use it to jump through the centuries, to some planet light-years away from this one, he could finally be delivered to his destiny and a life beyond tomorrow. _Tomorrow_. A strange term for a time-traveler such as himself to be using. The same was to be said of Yesterday or Presently or Soon. When Yesterday could be Tomorrow and Soon could mean anything from hundreds of years from Now (another concept he found to be entirely oversimplified) to a few minutes later than Now, Obi had learned not to set too much store by expressions such as those. He did, however, know that he wanted a cure for this damn disease as close to Soon as he could get.

The alleyway opened onto a footbridge, wooden slats slippery with frost, that eventually joined the main thoroughfare of Westminster Bridge. He paused, surveying the city over the collar of his coat, and wondered why it was here and now of all times and places that fate had decided to deliver him to.

Pulling a sleek mobile from his pocket, he wrapped his coat tighter against the bone-numbing fog rolling off the river and breathed in its icy chill. The thin device was outfitted with a cloaking technology that allowed only him to see it, but it seemed to be the only function of the phone that was working; the screen was a dull, lifeless grey. Smacking the phone on the railing of the icy bridge, he cursed the name of the mechanic whose store he had purchased it from. The mechanic had clutched the device in two of his seven grubby hands and told Obi that the mobile—no more than a sliver of glass—would work anywhere. Plus, the crook had charged him 2000 digits. If it didn’t bloody work, he’d—

A flicker. The dull grey of the screen lightened imperceptibly… then, beautifully, miraculously, the screen glowed and turned on.

“About _time_ ,” he burst out, pumping his fist in the air. A pigeon gave him a startled, slightly terrified look. “Ladies, gentlemen,” he murmured, thumbing through his contacts, “and of course everyone who is neither, or indeed in between, Obi Amadi is back in business.” He was grinning. The phone was buzzing and blinking, vibrating and chirping. Messages were flooding in from all over the galaxies. From various time periods, and solar systems, and—he cringed. Even one from that alternate universe he tried very, _very_ hard not to think about. He would have to figure out how to put the damn thing on silent, but it was alright for now. Most of the noise was swallowed up in the hissing steam and grinding machinery of the Industrial Revolution. Obi shivered in the cold, and in anticipation of the night to come. He was on his way to the British Museum in pursuit of an artifact that might very well be the key to the future he had been chasing for so long. Checking the time on his phone, he slipped it back into his pocket and glanced at the sky. The sun was nowhere near close to setting, still hanging bulbous and bright a way above the horizon, and—as amazingly skilled as he considered himself to be—he couldn’t very well carry out a robbery in broad daylight. No, there were still approximately four hours until night fall, and someone who had been centuries away from him for far too long was owed an explanation.

 

***

A long time ago, a fifteen-year-old boy had lain down to die on the cold, vicious streets of Georgian London. Only a fortuitous combination of the boy’s cries, a passing time traveler, and the kind of radiation only emitted by objects so far out of their proper time and place that they threaten to become nuclear bombs, allowed him to survive the night.

The boy was impossible. The boy was glowing. The boy was Obi Amadi on the brink of combustion. Obi’s left arm flickered out of being and did not return. Half of his right eyebrow soon followed suit.

A man in a battered, blood-stained trench coat watched this all from across the street. Delicately, purposefully, he withdrew a small device from the folds of his coat and turned it on. The small mechanical insect unfolded its wings and whirred to life. A murmured plea and a final order later, its sensors latched onto the heat signature of the radioactive boy and set its course for his heart.

The man in the trench coat grimaced. This was not going to be pretty. He would have felt sorry for the boy had he had not stopped feeling sorry for anyone, himself included, centuries ago on a planet that no longer existed, under the light of its twin moons. There was a beep and a flash. The man adjusted his lapels, then stepped sideways into nothingness.

The street lit up, and Obi Amadi screamed as his soul was anchored in 1806.

Half a city away, in a room with heavy cream curtains, where a vase of white tulips sat elegantly on a bedside table, the Prince of Wales sat bolt upright in bed, gasping as the image of a boy with eyes the colour of winter rain and skin the colour of dark mahogany was seared into his mind.

***

 

Buckingham House loomed in front of Obi, its red brick façade and alabaster pilasters as engraved into his memory as the inscription above the door. Gold, capital letters announced ‘ _sic siti laetantur lares_ ’, and Obi had to laugh; the household gods might delight in the situation, but he was considerably less enthusiastic.

It had been so long.

He skirted the fountain in the middle of the courtyard and made his way, wraithlike, through the open space—stepping and moving with the shadows until he almost became one. Emerging from the darkness behind a beautifully sculpted hedge, he grimaced. Instead of being familiar and comforting, all the grandeur simply served to remind him how out of place he was. It was different than he remembered, bigger, if that were possible. The back of his neck prickled. The last time he had approached the palatial house feeling so alienated he had barely been conscious. The memory was constructed more from what he had been told by others—one person in particular—than any real recollection. The only part of the memory he knew for sure was his, was the pain. One does not easily forget the way a soul feels when it begins to tear inside one’s chest, and that had been precisely what Obi had been experiencing; the tearing of his soul as his body prepared to enter the first stages of the Anchoring.

He had also been a complete and total stranger then, he reminded himself. Now, at least, he was here for a reason. Or two reasons. Two reasons that had become so pathetically entangled over the four years he had been away that he found them nearly impossible to separate . _Find the cure; become the person he deserves instead of the promise of one._

Obi forced himself to remember the first time he had stood, lain, collapsed, on these very steps. Nausea rose in his throat. He choked it down. _Let not the specters of our past dictate our actions in the present, nor our decisions in the future._ The voice he had always assumed was his father’s whispered in the back of his mind. It was the mere suggestion of a voice, just substantial enough a memory that Obi could be almost certain he hadn’t made it up. It was cruel advice in hindsight, but Obi’s father had abandoned him when Obi was only eight years old and so he supposed that his father must have been quite a cruel man in general. Cruel or desperate. A familiar melancholy rose up in him. He choked that down, too.

As he neared the palace doors he barely restrained a flinch, as almost against his will he recalled the dysphoria of feeling numbness and static where previously he had felt a limb. He remembered a whirring noise and the sickly green glow of his skin against the dark, filthy cobbles as he had lain down to die. He hadn’t known it then but that strange, pulsing radiation had saved his life.

Obi reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a crumpled, faded slip of paper. The page was torn from a book he had never had the privilege of reading but would do almost anything to obtain. Though he could time-travel, holding this page was the closest he ever felt to magic, as it reminded him inexplicably and without fail of his father. The man may have been cruel, but he had worn his power like a second skin. All of Obi’s memories of him were soaked in it. The first paragraph was circled in what could only be blood. There was a message written on the back in blood, too. Four words that made no sense. Obi didn’t like to read them, or think about them, or acknowledge them, really. So, he didn’t. The front was easy, though. The facts of his life laid out in print, cold and non-fictional and entirely unsympathetic:

PAGE 77 – GUIDING AND ITS PERILS

_contracting The Sickness. The Sickness is rare, only affecting those who have not properly been taught their craft by a more experienced Guide, usually a relative or mentor. It can also be contracted during an Anchoring, as this is when a Guide’s physical form is least connected to any realm, and therefore more susceptible to parasitic energies. The Sickness is characterized by the gradual unmaking of the Guide’s physical form; limbs may be lost, fingers, even a single eyelash. The Sickness presents itself slowly, only getting more aggressive as the Guide in question ages. The stages of the unmaking, i.e. loss of limb, only occur after a Guide has made a jump. It is unclear why. The Sickness is not contagious. There is no known cure._

_ ANCHORING _

_When a Guide turns of age he must Anchor himself to a time and place so that he will always be able to return somewhere without an Artifact* to guide him. He must leave a part of his soul in the Anchoring Place, or risk never being able to return._

_(*Artifact: an object that was once, or will be, of massive sentimental value to persons known or unknown by the Guide. An Artifact can be commanded to return to its owner by a Guide, and a Guide only. The sentimental energy of an Artifact can be harnessed and used to make a jump across space and time to the location of its owner._ _Warning: Some Artifacts can be volatile, and cases have been reported of Artifacts arriving too early in the timeline of their owners. See page 107: ‘Paradoxical Ignition’)_

At the bottom of the page, printed in tiny letters was:

T H E  A U S P E X  O R D E R

The magic-drenched slip of paper had been pinned to his shirt when he had woken, feverish and delirious with pain on the steps of Buckingham House. He had somehow wound up inside the curling iron gates, inches from the ornate double doors. His pain muddled brain hadn’t noticed the absence of guards. Or the boy craning his head over the balcony to stare down at him.

“Who the hell are you?” the boy had half whispered, half shouted, his voice rasping on the breeze. 

Obi must have temporarily lost consciousness, because when he opened his eyes, the boy was standing over him.

A booted foot nudged Obi’s side, poking at his ribs. The pain that lanced through his torso told Obi that they were horrifically broken. He let out a guttural groan, vision blurring.  Frowning, the boy watched as Obi attempted unsuccessfully to sit up. After what felt to Obi like hours, he gave up and curled onto his side, supporting his head with his right arm.

His left sleeve flapped in the breeze. _Of course it did_ , he had thought. There was no arm to obstruct it. 

The boy had let out a high pitched, strangled noise that he would later deny obstinately, and clutched at his sides.

“Good _God_ ,” he gulped. It took him a few moments, and more than a few profanity-riddled sentences before he was able to regain his composure. When he did he simply murmured, “Where in the _blazes_ is your _arm_?” before shaking his head to clear it and turning around to complete a complicated set of knocks on the palace doors and disappearing from sight. He might have said “Wait here,” but noise had become liquid and sound had slowed to a crawl as Obi convulsed on the cold, wet stone.

 

Four years, one arm, and several misadventures later, Obi had returned. He strode up the final steps towards the doors and executed the appropriate knock with an inappropriate lack of flourish and waited.

Nothing happened for five long minutes.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a panel on the left-hand door creaked open. Ducking his head, Obi stepped through it, closing the panel softly behind him and turning to face the inside of the palace. Wide, green eyes met his, and Obi swore his heart nearly stopped—but the face before him was only a painting. A painting that was achingly familiar to him, regardless of the fact that he had never seen it before:

Diplomatic brows drawn into a frown, chestnut hair swooping over a smooth forehead. A jaw, sharper and angrier than the last time he had seen it, cast—uncharacteristically arrogant—over a shoulder from which gold tassels hung. Badges, and of course, the royal insignia adorned the other.

Obi swore softly. Suddenly he wasn’t sure if this was even remotely the right thing to do. It had seemed right, had seemed like the least he could do, had seemed _decent_ of him, until he was eye to eye with a memory he hadn’t planned on facing until he was whole and once again wondering what exactly it was one said to a person they had loved, but left. _Coward,_ Obi thought bitterly. _You should be ashamed._ The metal fingers of his left arm clenched into a fist.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, looking everywhere but the piercing eyes of the painting. “I don’t know why I’ve come here. I mean, I do. It’s—it’s you, it always is. I just—I don’t know what I could possibly say to you that would excuse my actions,” he trailed off. The painting stared back, tall and authoritative and larger than life, but also so much paler and smaller and less _present_ than the real thing. “I missed you,” he breathed. “At times the missing was so painful I felt as though I might actually die, and you’ll say I’m being dramatic, I know you will, but it’s like that one line from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. You’ll know a prettier translation than me I’m sure, and more accurate too, no doubt… It’s Book Nine, I think, but I can’t be certain. Anyway, Theseus calls to Pirithous, and he says, “‘You are more to me—’ no, sorry, it’s—"

“‘You mean more to me than myself’,” said the Prince of Wales. “You who are part of my very soul.”

Obi turned around. The shadowy, previously empty hallway was no longer empty.

“How apt,” the Prince continued. “It’s Book Eight. When they battle the Caledonian Boar. Theseus is telling his… _well_ , his companion, to be careful. He doesn’t want to lose him.” His smile was caustic and cold—so far removed from the smile Obi had once known that he felt the strange urge to turn and run.

 _I wasn’t dead_ , he wanted to whisper. _I didn’t mean to be away for so long._

“I imagine,” the prince continued, “that he couldn’t bear the thought of living in a world where the person he shared his soul with was,” he paused, “absent.”

Obi closed his eyes. He had never been so ashamed in his life.

The Prince of Wales reached out a gloved hand. Obi took it. Of course he did; it was muscle memory. Then the Prince stepped directly into Obi’s space and said softly,

“I waited for you.” Their boots were toe to toe. Their palms pressed together like two halves of a prayer. “Was it really wrong of me to assume you would be there in the morning? It’s been four years. You lied. I saved your life, and you thanked me by lying to my face.” The Prince closed his eyes, his mouth a grim a line. “I can’t even find my anger, anymore.” His eyes opened, and Obi realized he had forgotten just how green they were. Just how easily they saw through the theatrics and the persona to settle directly on the truth.

“Why,” asked the Prince, sotto voce and half devastated, “are you here?”

Somewhere within himself, Obi found the willpower to break eye contact and step neatly around him, unlinking their fingers. The Prince whirled around, raking his hair out of his face.

“You know if you cut it, it wouldn’t get in your eyes so much,” Obi said, smiling weakly. “You look good, though. Maybe it’s the crown, I’m not sure yet. Perhaps I need a closer look.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t—” The Prince made a choked sound. “You can’t just waltz in here and act like nothing’s changed.”

“Well if I can’t waltz then it’s your fault.” Obi said, “You taught me.”

Oh _,_ how he hated this version of himself _._ The version that taunted and mocked and made light of serious situations. When this version of Obi stepped forward into the light, the bothersome notions of _consequences_ and _common sense_ took a back seat. Other people’s feelings were relegated to the side lines as he tried to minimize the emotional damage he would sustain from the situation. Selfish until the very end.

The Prince took a deep, rattling breath.

“We were fifteen, Obi. My father was on the brink of insanity. I think,” he paused, “that I was, too.” His shoulders slumped. “Would it kill you to take something seriously for once in your life?”

Obi bit down a _maybe_ and looked up. 

 “George. I’m so sorry. I can explain—”

The Prince held up a hand. It was a thoughtlessly regal gesture, and it killed the explanation on Obi’s tongue instantly. He realized that he had just said George’s name aloud for the first time in four years.

The boy who was nearly a man, who was next in line to the English throne, and would eventually become King George IV, stared at Obi with sad eyes.

“Well you can’t do it here. Come to my rooms, we can get some food brought up.” He gestured at Obi’s lean frame, at his high, pinched and jutting cheekbones. “You look like you could use it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Three

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [city: The Lower Quarter]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

Asha felt the alien’s words like a slap. _Your mother has been lying to you._

“Lying to me? What are you talking about?” She gripped her knife harder.

“How well do you really know your mother, girl?” he asked, newly scarlet eyes flashing. Asha’s first feeling was indignation. They told each other everything. Anila knew her better than anyone alive.

“Think of your people’s history,” he continued. “You know what your ancestors did to survive. Destroying the place that gave you life without so much as a backward glance.”

Asha frowned.

“That’s not—”

“Hush, girl. _Think_.”

It was simple enough. The history of Humanity was short and tragic—not worth dwelling over. They had left Earth just over a thousand years ago, hurtling through space in a fleet of rapidly degenerating ships, praying for a miracle and finding Gahraan instead. Only four out of fifty ships had made it, and even combined, their prehistoric technology was barely enough to make a dent in the red of the planet’s sandy surface. Terraforming had been limited to four key spots around the landing sites. Four domes had been erected and four oases constructed inside them. Humanity built a new life out of sand and recycled metal, all the while daring to dream of the future. It had been that way for three years. Three years of peace. Of existing on a planet no longer dying under their feet. Then, Ai’varek Thracin had turned the tide of the Great War at the Siege on Alzahath, the victory raising moral and proving him worthy of ascension from Commander to General. Then he’d _won_ the Great War at the Battle of the Twelve Behemoths, reputation shining brighter than his medals, unstoppable and unconquerable and unafraid. Then, as so often is the way, the troops under his command had refused to leave the places they had freed and slowly ‘liberation’ came to mean ‘unending occupation’. The war had stripped everyone of any last fight they might have had left, so the resistance was minimal and easily swept aside. It was when he sent soldiers to scour his various properties for rebels that the Human settlement was discovered, and the people enslaved. That had been years before Asha was born. The suffocation of a life lived under empire was something she did not know life without.

Asha considered her mother’s part in it all. Anila had never seen Earth, never lived there. She had been born and raised on the ship, one of the twelve thousand who first stepped out of sterilized titanium and onto the dusty ground.

“I don’t understand,” she said furiously. “What are you trying to tell me?”

The alien blinked slowly. “Be wary of the truth, girl.” He reached into the folds of his cloak and withdrew an envelope. “And be wary of your mother, for a secret taken to the grave is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.”

He pressed the envelope into her shaking hand.

There was no seal or monogram, no way of identifying who it was from. The paper was thin. Standard issue, utilitarian. She ripped the corner off with her teeth. The letter was plain and simple.

 

_TO: Anila Dhaka_

_Status: Indenture_

_Citizenship: N/A_

_Planet of residence: GAHRAAN (lower quarter, oasis 2)_

_Relationship to the subject: Mother_

_Age: 44_

  1. Dhaka,



The Consortium sends this correspondence to inform you that your daughter, subject 3492747 [Aziza Dhaka], is due to be released from her service as a laborer, having served her minimum sentence of 18 years, starting from the date of her incarceration in 6060, to the present day.

Subject 3492747 will be released on the commencement of the Third Cycle of this Quintonian Movement (Year 500), as dictated by the Universal Calendar. As this coincides with the subject turning 21 years of age, she will no longer be eligible for residence in the holding center on A’lkari, nor will she be allowed to leave unaccompanied as the subject is not yet of age (21 years old). Therefore, Subject 3492747 [Aziza Dhaka], will be bound into permanent service if she is not met by a relative on the day of her release, as specified above.

The Subject was detained in the stead of Anila Dhaka, for the theft of government property.

 

Signed,

Your Supreme Government,

The Consortium.

_Quadrat XIO-098_

_The Vidanium System_

Asha nearly dropped the letter. This couldn’t be possible. The letter had said that her mother, Anila Dhaka, was the mother of this Subject 3492747. _Aziza Dhaka._ How could this be? How could she have a _sister_ in _prison_?

_Your mother has been lying to you._

Anger rose again inside her throat. But it was tinged with confusion. With disbelief. With the sick acid-burn of betrayal.

 _On A’lkari_. Thracin’s stronghold. Fear turned Asha’s vision to static and back again.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Asha almost refused to re-read that last, sickeningly incriminating sentence. She wanted to pretend it did not exist.

_The Subject was detained in the stead of Anila Dhaka, for the theft of government property._

The usual punishment for such a crime was death. How had her mother escaped?

It did not bother her that her mother was a criminal. It would have been the height of hypocrisy to judge her for this when Asha had been re-appropriating government property since the age of twelve. The thing that reviled her was the fact that she had let her eldest daughter go to prison in her place, while she led a normal life, pretending as though nothing had ever happened. _While she had had another daughter to replace the one she had lost_. Asha felt sick to her stomach, to her heart. Her mother was a coward.

But how was Anila’s past in any way relevant to the past of Humanity?

She scanned back over the letter, her analytical brain picking up on the figures and facts, trying to find a pattern, seeking the order in the chaos.

Her sister was twenty years old, she had clearly been born onboard one of the fleetships, just like Asha’s mother and grandparents. That put her date of birth sometime in 6058.

Her heart dropped. She felt light headed. _It couldn’t be._

Distantly, she felt the alien’s hand close around her own, jerking her knife out of his abdomen. She let the blade fall out of her numb hands to clatter on the floor—her mind was reeling.

Two months ago, Asha had been researching resource conservation onboard the fleet. She had come across a statement issued by the captain of the ship stating that, due to a need to conserve water and oxygen until the landing site was reached in five years’ time, a cap was being put on the population. The statement had said that in nine months, pregnancy would become illegal, punishable by death. That had been in 6054. The ship had landed in 6059.

She redid her mental calculations one more time. The sister she had become aware of a mere two minutes previously had been born in 6058.

Impossible.

Either her mother had managed to conceal a pregnancy, the birth of a child, and then _an actual child_ on board a spaceship where everyone was monitored to within an inch of their lives… or she had never been on that ship.

It had never occurred to her that her mother was any less than what she said she was. But the fact that she couldn’t have been on that ship implied things Asha didn’t even want to think about.

Everything she had ever known to be true collapsed and then reconfigured itself as disbelief settled over her memories, and shock obliterated all coherent thought. _Who is this woman who calls herself my mother, who wears her clothes and sleeps in her bed?_ Nausea slid, slick and heavy into her stomach. Gaping holes were present where they hadn’t been moments before, tiny fragments of information she had dismissed as inconsequential rearranged themselves in her mind to paint a portrait of lies and deceit. Her mother was a rag doll whose flesh and blood were felt and wool, and whose insides didn’t exist at all.

 _Your mother has been lying to you._ Suddenly she realized this was the one thing she knew to be true.

“Well?” The alien grinned. It was a slow, pleased grin that sent ice through Asha’s veins. He knew he was right and so did she.

“I—I don’t… I don’t understand.”

The alien’s smile grew cruel. Asha flinched in recognition; she wore that same look herself, sometimes.

“The first casualty of war is the truth, Asha Dhaka. Remember that.” The gravel in his voice was gone, it sounded deeper, fuller. Asha looked down. The black blood that had stained the front of his robe had disappeared, as had the entrance wound and even the rip in the fabric. A faint light distortion hummed around the wound, like heat shimmering off the sand at midday. Asha did not understand.

“I—"

“It takes a little more than a child’s plaything to dispatch a member of the Auspex Order, little girl.”

The alien stood, collecting his cloak off the ground and dusting it off imperiously before casting her a last backwards glance.

Asha stared at the no man’s land that stretched between them. She realized that it was more than a few steps that separated them; centuries spanned the gap. This thing, this being, was older than anything she had ever encountered.

The alien smiled, his needle teeth flashing, “We will meet again,” he said, “on a planet far from here. You will be reeling with loss, there will be blood on your hands and I,” he smiled, “will be your only hope.” He tipped two long fingers to his head, a mocking salute, and cast one last glance at the envelope. “Until next time, Asha Dhaka.”

Blustering, Asha stood. “Wait!” she shouted, “How can you—" but her words were drowned out by a vacuous gust of wind that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The alien swept his cloak around himself in one sharp, billowing movement, and then… began to fold. The space around him glitched and creased, doubling over and collapsing into itself, taking the alien with it. Patches of air folded like paper, and then flattened, leaving no trace of him behind. Asha gaped, shielding her eyes from the billowing clouds of dust and sand that the—teleportation? Disappearance? _Magic_ _trick?_ —had kicked up into the air, and tried not to breakdown. This was all too much, too fast. She was completely overwhelmed. _How had the alien vanished like that?_ It had almost looked like he was manipulating space, or light, but that kind of thing was impossible, surely? And then there had been his proclamation. Y _ou will be reeling with loss, there will be blood on your hands… and I will be your only hope._ He had said she would be on another planet. It was the kind of thing that had fueled her dreams for longer than she could remember. The thought of escaping her circumstance, of escaping the anger and inferiority that plagued her every step was nothing short of exhilarating. It felt like fate. And fate was something you were supposed to go out and _meet,_ wasn’t it? That you were meant to seek, like a fortune, or… _or an adventure_ , she thought.

 As the dust settled around her, her despair galvanized itself into resolve. What she had to do next was confront her mother, she alone held the answers to Asha’s questions; the alien had made that clear.

_Your mother has been lying to you._

Looking out of the alleyway and onto the dark, concrete streets she had grown up in, Asha felt as though the solid ground she had been standing in front of mere moments ago had crumbled and fallen away to reveal precipice beyond which an abyss stretched and yawned. She knew that something awaited her in the darkness, something shapeless and terrifying and hopeful and great in the way a just king was great, or great in the way her fear was in that moment. Something that would test her and wound her, break and rebuild her but that might, ultimately, save her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

 

George’s rooms were everything Obi remembered. The cream curtains and oil paintings reminded him of afternoons spent eating scones and sketching in the sunlight that drifted in from the huge bay windows. The ornate lamps that bathed the room in a soft, warm glow were the same ones they had read by late into the night. If Obi closed his eyes he could hear George’s voice reading passages from Gulliver’s Travels, or the low melody of a grand piano come to life under lively fingers.

George’s presence behind him was so loud Obi felt as if he were drowning in unspoken confessions. He did not turn around.

“Do you still have it?” asked Obi, smothering the desperation in his voice with a nonchalance he did not feel.

“Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

He turned.

“Funny. I remember someone asking me that question a few years ago. He looked like you.” Obi’s voice was cut glass, sharp and deadly. “Couldn’t have been, though. He was a lot nicer. Smiled more.”

George’s face was a mask of control. It fit him well, Obi thought sadly.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through these past few years? Do you have any idea what I’ve dealt with?” George shook his head. It was a precise, controlled movement. “How could you? You vanished without a trace. All you left behind was that box.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. Obi had forgotten that he did that. “I did what you asked of me,” he continued. “I never opened it.”

“Thank you, I–”

“Also, you have two arms now. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” he rolled his eyes. “Though of course if anyone were ever to leave a place with one arm and return four years later with two, it would be you. Obi Amadi. The impossible boy, returned. I should make it a national holiday. Which I can do now, by the way.”

“Careful, George. Don’t let the shiny crown inflate your own sense of self-importance any bigger than it already is.”

“Bastard.”

“Well according to the rumors, that’s you actually.”

George’s face flushed an angry scarlet.

“How dare you insinuate –”

“Oh, relax. I’d forgotten you couldn’t take a joke.”

Obi’s fingers itched with pure desperation; he needed to get to that box. He had to see that its contents were safe. His life depended on it.

 

***

 

After Obi had watched George slip inside the palace that night four years ago, he had closed his eyes and opened them two days later in a bed he didn’t recognize, staring up at a ceiling painted like the night sky.

Obi had grown up an orphan on the streets of London. As a result of the strange, dark, energy he seemed to exude he was mostly left alone. Mostly. Sometimes there were men and women who either didn’t sense the darkness around him, or simply didn’t care. Sometimes there were rough hands and rougher treatment. Sometimes he was able fight his way out. Sometimes. Some assailants were smarter than others, though. Some had worked out that he couldn’t put up much of a fight if he was drugged, or better yet, unconscious.

This had happened before.

Obi was no stranger to the nausea that rose in his throat as he fought the against sheets that tangled in his legs. He gasped and tore at the bedding, panic making his movements clumsy.

“Alright there?” said a voice still scratchy with sleep.

He had looked upwards to see another boy staring at him from across the room, bed shirt hanging off one shoulder, his eyes wide in alarm and lip curled in derision.

“There’s no need to panic, you’re quite safe.”

Obi recognized this boy.

“But—” he shook his head, trying to clear the fog that had settled over his mind and memory. “You left me outside, I thought... I don’t understand.”

“Well I couldn’t very well drag you inside and up all the stairs by myself, now could I?” He laughed. It was a careless sound that immediately set Obi’s nerves on edge. “I had the servants bring you to my chambers.” He gestured vaguely towards a pile of bandages that lay folded on the carpet. “In addition, I requested the physician bring you these for your arm, which is still missing incidentally, but as you aren’t actually bleeding I deemed them somewhat unnecessary.”

 _His arm._ Obi went cold.

The boy must have seen his face drain of colour and dredged up the decency to look remorseful.

“Didn’t you know?”

Obi forced himself to shake his head. Then he looked downwards at the place where his left arm used to be.

His shoulder was smooth and unmarked, meeting seamlessly with his torso. But that was all there was; where his arm should have been, there was nothing.

“Who did this?” Obi’s eyes were wide, frantic. “Was it you?” He was breathing harder. “ _I’ll kill you_.”

The boy smiled smugly.

“I have no doubt,” he said, “that you would. I don’t think you’d hesitate to slit my throat, even if you found out I _hadn’t_ done it.” He spread his arms, as though inviting Obi to challenge him. “Unfortunately, much to your chagrin I suppose, I am innocent.” He pulled his bed shirt back up over his shoulder and pushed his air out of his eyes. Looking suddenly regal, he arched one thin brow.

“But as it stands, I have something you care about. Something you fought through pain and delirium to make me swear on my life that I would protect,” he cracked a smile. “You also said I wasn’t to touch it, which is a shame as it’s very pretty and shiny,” the boy smiled, playful and young, “and I do so love shiny things.” He pointed to his dresser. Next to a lamp there sat a smooth black box with silver fastenings that curled around a central lock. There was no keyhole.

“That’s not mine,” growled Obi.

The boy sighed. “I’d hoped you weren’t as stupid as you look, but it seems I was wrong.” He threw back the covers of his bed and swung his legs over the edge. He walked slowly to the dresser and picked up the box. “ _This_ is mine. It’s some kind of family heirloom, but we have about a thousand of those, so I don’t think anyone shall miss it.”

Turning the box over in his hands he had said, “No, it’s what’s inside that belongs to you.”

***

 

Now, separated by years that felt like lifetimes, they both stared into the empty space between them.

George walked over to his dresser and opened the bottom drawer. Reaching to the back he rummaged around. When he withdrew his hand, a box rested in his palm. Their eyes met. Four years later and George hadn’t opened it. Obi felt a complicated tug somewhere suspiciously close to his heart. Closing the distance between them in a few short strides George placed the box almost, Obi thought, reverentially, in his outstretched hand.

The lid blew off in a bang of bright white light. Smoke curled from its depths, filling the room with the smell of ozone and burning wood, but also something else, something less tangible.

A feeling.

Fingers of electricity grazing the back of his consciousness, a jolt of memory and hope and desire. He felt the potential to be something more than _broken_ swell in his chest, and then deflate back into viscous self-loathing all in a matter of seconds. He gasped.

Then all the light was sucked from the room and pulled into the box. 

The darkness was absolute. Inky and opaque. Utterly suffocating.

Claustrophobia squeezed at his chest.

“Obi?” George whispered somewhere to his left. At the sound of his voice, the box started glowing in faint pulses. A tendril of white light, a wisp of memory and magic, broke away from the box. It floated its way languidly, liquidly through the air like a spider’s web borne upon the breeze. It lit up George’s face, casting his eyes into shadow and throwing his cheekbones into sharp relief.  Clearly mesmerised, he stretched out a single finger. The strand wrapped around his wrist and sunk into his skin. A delicate circlet of light now shone where the wisp had settled and disappeared. He gasped, eyes wide and fearful. “Obi—” George’s voice was uncertain. The circlet of light glowed brighter. Acrid smoke, and the smell of burning flesh curled into Obi’s nose, and then George’s eyes were rolling back in their sockets and he had fallen, boneless, to the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [city: The Lower Quarter]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

Asha slipped her keys into the lock and twisted. The door swung open and she stepped angrily over the threshold. At least, she hoped she came across angry. Slamming the door for good measure, she turned on the lights, and let out a strangled scream as she saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table.

“Where have you been?” Her mother’s voice was calm and low. It was also terrifying. Her inky black hair, normally plaited in a single braid down her back, now hung in ropes around her face. The candle light hollowed her cheeks and sunk her eyes into shadow.

“I –” Asha blinked. This was not how the conversation had happened in her head.

“You said you’d be home hours ago. I was worried _sick_ , Asha. I heard there was an incident at the temple this morning. One of the guards… I—I didn’t know if you were there, if you were _hurt_ —" Her mother’s gaze softened, “I love you so much, Asha, all I ask is that you send me a message if you’re staying out after dark.”

The warmth in her mother’s eyes was so comforting, the chip in her front tooth as she smiled so familiar, so synonymous with _home_ , that Asha felt her resolve begin to crumble. She couldn’t destroy this. This life her mother had carved out for them in the bedrock of an empire, chipping away at their circumstance to make the air that little bit more breathable.

_This life built of lies._

“I know what you did.” Asha blurted out. “I mean, I know that you’re a liar.”

Her mother’s eyes widened in shock. She frowned, “I don’t understand, what—”

Asha pulled the letter from her pocket and put it on the table.

“What were you thinking? You sold your firstborn child into slavery to atone for ‘crimes committed against the Consortium’. Crimes _you_ committed.” Asha’s heart was pounding, she had never spoken to her mother like this before. But her anger was crawling its way back up her throat, reminding her of what she had read in the alleyway. “I have a sister. I have a twenty-year-old sister who doesn’t even know I _exist_.”

Anila Dhaka’s face drained of colour as her secrets were laid bare by her youngest daughter.

“Asha, listen to me.”

“I never want to hear your voice again.”

“Asha Dhaka, you will listen to me right now, or so help me _god_ , I will never tell you the truth. Sit down. I did not do what I did for the hell of it.” She pulled out a chair and motioned again for Asha to sit. “Whenever I tell you that I have been through hell and back to give you more of a chance than I was ever afforded, I mean it. When I arrived on this planet I was pregnant and alone. I was one of millions fleeing the Consortium and their fraudulent allegations. I fought tooth and nail for housing, and a water supply, and then, after I had you, I fought just as hard for your future. There’s a reason you work factory lines and sort parts and live by Oasis 1 instead of killing yourself a little more every day in the mines by Oasis 4.”

But Asha was barely listening. “What do you mean _arrived_? I—I don’t—you should have been _born_ here. You _told_ me you were born here!”

Anila rubbed her neck and grimaced. Where her hair parted Asha could see oval shaped bruises. The alien’s fingerprints. Her anger recoiled slightly.

Anila sighed, putting her weary head in her work-torn hands and taking a breath. “I come from a place far from here, where oases cover the planet instead of sand, and mountains rise from fault lines capped with ice.” Her voice was wistful, quiet. “I was raised by an entire village. My family were sentients of the loveliest kind, and I miss them every day. We were free.”

Asha swallowed, the back of her neck prickling as she listened to her mother. She was still angry that she had been lied to for so long, but she was more hurt than furious now. The anger that had threatened to consume her was being slowly extinguished by the homesick melancholy in her mother’s eyes. 

“I don’t know which planet I was born on, but I do know where I raised. The planet doesn’t have a name in our language. I—I don’t even know what sector it was in.” She stopped for a moment, collected herself, and continued, “I was a foundling. I crashed onto the planet in some kind of pod—a cryogenics unit, I think—just outside the village. The sentients who lived there were incredibly kind.” She smiled faintly, “They took me in. Raised me like their own. I didn’t speak the Universal Dialect until after I was taken. I spoke their language. It was simple; humming at various pitches, clicking in different patterns. I’ve forgotten a lot of it now,” she frowned, looking vaguely ashamed. Asha had never seen her mother ashamed. “I lived there until I was about sixteen, although I had no way of really knowing. Then, one night the village was raided. Consortium soldiers killed my family. They killed them, and I was—” she broke off. “They killed them, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. The soldiers spared me. Maybe because I was human looking, and it was a shock. I don’t know. They slaughtered my family and let me live. Before I had you, I often wished I had died in that jungle.”

Asha felt her heart clench.

“They forced me aboard their ship and then on to another one and another one and another one, until I was so far from anything I had ever known that I couldn’t even recognize the stars. It was—I was horrified and disorientated and weak. But I managed to escape. I don’t know how long I was captive for. Long enough to be nearly ruined by the time I was finally free. The ship I had been on made an unscheduled stop for fuel at an intergalactic hub. I was able to slip away during the scramble and panic of landing preparations. I was pregnant, by this time.”

Asha clapped a hand over her mouth. “ _Oh my—”_

“I’m not finished.”

Revulsion and anger boiled, _writhed_ inside her. Shock and disgust jockeyed for first place in her heart. Suddenly her rock-solid convictions were gravel and sand. _There was so much she didn’t know_.

“I was pregnant and confused and _hurt_. I had lived such a simple, happy, carefree life, and suddenly I was thrown into the depraved, horrible web of Consortium run galaxies that you’ve grown up knowing. The real world chewed me up and spat me out. It changed me. Made me _mean_. I made some terrible mistakes. But it also meant that you were brought into my life. And I wouldn’t give you up for anything.” She took a shaky breath. “I know what you’re thinking. That I say I wouldn’t give you up for anything, but I gave away your sister? You’re right, I did give her away, but I’ve never given up on her. At that time, your sister represented every horrible thing that had happened to me. I never wanted her—and I know it sounds horrible—but I was young and unprepared, and I hadn’t asked for any of it. So, when the Consortium agents turned up at my doorstep, telling me that by escaping them, by seeking out the freedom that I thought was every sentient’s right, I’d become a criminal, I gave them what they asked for.  They told me that the only way to redeem myself, to keep my freedom, was to give up your sister.”

“So, you did.”

“I did. I’m not proud of it. I regret it every single day, but I was barely older than you, Ash. What would you have done?”

Asha couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even begin to fathom being in such a position. “I don’t know.”

“I think you might have done the same thing.”

Asha didn’t reply. She had nothing to say to that.

 “I am no criminal,” said Anila. “I simply did what I had to survive. You understand that, don’t you?”

Asha squeezed her eyes shut.

“Ash—”

Asha held up a hand. “I’m trying to process everything you just said.”

Her mind was spinning.

“I just—I don’t know what to think. She’s going to be trapped in their service forever if we don’t get to her in time. We have to do _something._ How can we not?”

“Asha, I know—”

“I don’t blame you for what you did. I’m not mad at you, I don’t have the right to be. But I can’t just sit here, knowing what I know, and not do anything.”

“How do you think I feel, my love?

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“You can’t stand to sit back and do nothing while there is someone who needs your help?”

Asha looked at her, surprised.

“I know you,” her mother said. “I know how you’re feeling. Just like your father. But Asha, we have to let her go.”

_“What?”_

“We have no way of getting to her. We can’t just pack up and leave. Our lives are here. If we left, we might not have anything to come back to. And anyway, they’d kill us the moment we set foot outside past curfew. She will be alright.”

“How can you _say that_? This isn’t a ‘life’, this isn’t living. We’re slaves. Mama, she’s your _daughter,_ my sister! After giving her away, surely you owe her this?”

“Asha!”

“What!”

“You’re being ridiculous. This is hard on me too. Do you think I like this idea? Do you think I haven’t agonized over it? Do you think I haven’t lost sleep and cried and screamed over it? Stop acting like I’m the monster, and you’re so righteous! This isn’t a black and white decision, there _is no right answer_.” Anila was shaking. Asha had never seen her this angry before. “That’s why they sent the letter! It’s part of his psychological war; Thracin’s regime relies on weakness. His administration knows that there is nothing that will make a person feel weaker than a reminder of their complete and total helplessness. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my entire life. And that’s the thing! It’s _my_ decision. _Not_ yours.”

“But I—”

“Go to bed. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“No! Why can’t—”

“Asha Dhaka!”

“Fine!” she yelled. “You _always_ do this, you always cut discussions off when they’re not going your way, just because you _can_.” She slammed the door to her bedroom and threw herself onto her bed. Grabbing her pillow, she shoved her face into it and screamed. How could her mother be this cold? How could sit at home while her eldest daughter was forced into slavery?

_Our lives are here._

That was what her mother had said.

Well, Asha was sorry, but no. _No_. Maybe her mother’s lie of a life had started its fabrication here, but this was not what she wanted for herself. She had never wanted this.

Staring up at her bedroom ceiling, she whispered the same thing that she had whispered countless nights before. The mantra that had kept fire in her blood and that desire for adventure, for something _more than this_ , sparking in her heart.

“I will not be buried here.”

It would be hours before she came up with a plan, hours before she built up the courage and the will and the want to go through with it. But go through with it she would.

“I will _not_ be buried here.”

She was getting off this planet, once and for all.

She was going to save her sister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

“Obi?”

The last thing George registered before the circlet of light clinging to his wrist started its spontaneous combustion, was Obi’s face. He had half a second to reflect on how much it had changed. His hair; short. Nose; broken and healed. Eyes; ancient. Arm; present.

Then the visions of impossible things started, things that shouldn’t have made sense but _did_. They burned their way through his pupils and all he saw, for a few painless seconds, was light.

_Now he is looking down a whirlwind of time and space to see Obi at the center._

_George watches in disbelief as Obi steps out of one of the fourth story windows of Buckingham House and hits the dusty floor of another planet. Then he is yanked off his feet, and he is whipping forward through time, words like_ Artifact, _and_ Guide, _and_ Soul, _ricocheting around his skull, the centuries peeling off the universe like snake skin. He crashes to a stop, struggling to breathe in a strange new atmosphere. Tepid rain pours from the sky in sheets, drenching him. Steam begins to rise from his clothes, and he watches,_ _paralysed_ _, as Obi trudges through a lilac desert in the middle of a storm. Violet lightning strikes the ground next to him, hurling him through a gaping black rip that the lightning has rent in the fabric of the world, and suddenly George_ is _Obi and two more years have passed, and he’s pressing his face to the burning window of a space shuttle as he hurtles towards a dying star. He feels Obi’s fear as if it is his own, squeezing his eyes shut as the shuttle is swallowed in searing light. Then he is lying on his back in some faraway nebula gazing up at some faraway constellation and burning with an almost ferocious need to keep moving, to never stay in one place for too long. There is a thought, an anxiety, a worry. It hangs over him, grim and darker than a raincloud. Obi does not name it, but it controls everything he does. Every perilous venture, every sacrifice, every step of his journey—they’re all supposed to ease the worry. And he’s getting close. The map next to him is littered with red circles and crosses and lines linking galaxies together, plotting a million different courses from one system to the next; the evidence of a life on the move. Then the stars above him are growing larger and larger, until the sky is more white than black, and then they have swallowed him whole. He lands on his front with a thud and feels the cool metal of an operating table under Obi’s skin, sees the glint of a scalpel and the stark, white lights of a hospital in some far away dimension. George watches through Obi’s eyes as metal bites and fuses with flesh. He screams as white-hot pain lances through his torso, his abdomen, his neck, until it feels like pain is all that there is and ever will be._

_He feels the small burst of determined joy that flares in Obi's chest when he flexes his newly fitted fingers for the first time. He feels the sharp thrill of hope when Obi pictures a boy’s face. George’s face. Distorted by time and memory, but his face nonetheless. He feels the grim-dark thought closing in, and he feels the unmaking, but does not understand it. A roaring rush of sound fills his ears and suddenly his consciousness is forcefully ejected from Obi’s mind and slammed back into his own body; no longer a participant but a spectator to Obi’s trials once again. He watches, helpless, as Obi drags himself through time and space, a boy's voice, his voice, echoing through the centuries, filling Obi with intention, driving him forward._

_‘As long as you live you will have a place beside me. Come home, Obi.’_

_‘Come home.’_

***

George regained consciousness with a gasp, shuddering violently, his breathing labored and heaving. Obi was torn between fury because _you don’t just touch a wayward wisp of someone’s soul_ , and terror because _oh my God he has lain hands on the essence of who I am and survived. What has he seen?_

They locked eyes, and Obi’s vision blurred. He saw two hands, one carved from white ivory, the other from black marble, reaching, _straining_ towards each other through flames that burned blue. The hands drew closer and closer until they touched and brilliant, shining gold rippled over each from the point of contact outwards, racing over skin, and sinking in until the hands were clasped tightly together and shining like twin miracles.

Obi blinked, and his vision cleared. George was still looking into his eyes, awestruck, and angry and disbelieving. His strong, pianist’s hands grasped each other, the knuckles white, veins corded in his wrists. Slowly, his shaking became less frequent. Bit by bit he regained his composure. Like pieces of a mask slotting into place, his forehead smoothed, his shock-slack mouth drawing itself into a harder, more unforgiving line. His eyes turned almost blank, he barely breathed. Obi stepped forward and knelt in front of him. Lifting his right hand—if it hadn’t been his prosthetic, oh _,_ how it would have shaken—and placing it a mere breath from George’s cheek. The prince looked into his eyes, and Obi knew that it was taking everything single ounce of his incredible self-control not to flinch away from the alien metal that had replaced flesh. The faint blue light that shone from between the joints of Obi’s fingers fell onto George’s face. A single tear fell from his eye, catching briefly on his lower lashes, and landed on the metal. Obi could feel it. George closed his eyes. Obi wiped the tears from George’s face. His skin was hot. George exhaled slowly, his eyes remaining closed. He grasped Obi’s left hand in his own, worrying his thumb against Obi’s forefinger.

"You absolute idiot," Obi whispered, simultaneously concerned and awestruck. "That was a piece of my soul." He shook his head, frowning, "you should have died, or been sucked inside, or be trapped in some…” he gestured around, trying to find the words, “ _in between place_." 

George dragged his free hand through his ruined hair and grimaced. “I know what you are."

Obi’s heart stopped.

"George—” 

"I know what you are,” his voice was rough, as though he hadn’t spoken in years, and had only just remembered how. He let go of Obi’s hand, and stood, then walked over to the dresser and poured himself a glass of water, hands trembling as he raised the glass to his mouth and swallowed. Obi tried not to watch the strong, supple line of his neck as it moved, he really did. “I know who you are,” George continued. “I know what you wish for even when you know it's impossible. I know what you want. " He took several deep, shuddering, breaths. "I know the deepest parts of you and I can never unknow them now."

Obi felt as though someone had reached into the very deepest depths of him and plucked the blackest, most decayed part of himself from the neglected garden of his heart and was now holding it between thumb and forefinger like it was a bloom from the garden of God. He felt as though George had located the evil, _wicked_ part of him, the part made of desperation, the part that still belonged to the young, scared boy who had travelled the stars alone, surviving all those years on a wish and a prayer, and exposed it to the pure white light of the stars.

It felt like standing on the razor-sharp blade of a knife and asking to be pushed. He was tempting fate and it should have felt wrong, it should have felt like a crime.

Instead, something noisy and clamorous inside him went quiet for the first time since he had left all those years ago.

"I don't mind." Obi closed his eyes. Opened them. "I’m glad that it was you. I guess I always knew something like this could have happened while I was away; that you might open the box and my soul would act as a window. A window into my memories, my wants and sacrifices.” He smiled weakly, "I'm guessing you’re all caught up as to my whereabouts over the last four years."

George shook his head, as if to say _I am exasperated beyond coherent thought and it is entirely your fault._ Then he laughed softly.

Obi hadn’t forgotten that sound.

As George’s laughter tumbled into the space between them, he let himself relax for quite possibly the first time in years. He hadn’t forgotten this oneness, this perfect understanding that they shared. He let his eyes flutter shut and a grin carve its way across his mouth. Then he let George brush careful hands over his cheekbones, and cup his jaw in careful palms like he was something to be treasured instead of ignored. Let George look at him with those serious green eyes of his and hoped against hope he hadn’t hurt him as badly as those same eyes suggested he probably had.

Over the years Obi had learned a thing or two about the consistency of time; somewhere between quicksilver and molten lead, it could be as volatile as an electrical storm, and as malleable as a brick. He had learned that sometimes, gaps were created that could be exploited. That, with the right object to guide you, could be made wider. Wide enough to step through, and stable enough that you could emerge somewhere else on the other side. As Obi kissed George for what was only the second time in his life, he felt as though he had stepped through a split in time from somewhere airless and had emerged at the purest source of oxygen in the universe.

George’s hands slid around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Time slowed to a crawl and the world became skintight. George kissed him like he had everything to give and nothing to lose—a prince in a circlet of gold laid low by a treacherous heart. His mouth felt like coming home, the smooth skin under Obi’s hands felt sacrosanct. They were chest to chest, hip to hip, and Obi’s heart was pounding in the way it only did after jumping through time and space.

After being starved of touch for so long, Obi was nearly overwhelmed by this heart-stopping, mind-melting euphoria. Nearly. George was everywhere and everything. His warm hand on Obi’s hip slid into his back pocket. Obi twisted his fingers in George’s hair. Legs tangled and breathing hitched. Skin slid against warm skin. One of them groaned.

The ice-cold front that George put on for other people had fallen away, leaving him warm and pliable under Obi’s hands. Obi felt a heavy heat pool in his stomach.

His throat felt tight.

 _This wasn’t supposed to happen. You were supposed to_ _apologise_ _and then leave_ , whispered a small voice in the back of his head. _You weren’t supposed to kiss him. You weren’t supposed to want him like this_. Obi sighed and pulled away, the heat of George’s mouth obvious in its absence. He gazed at George’s shoulders, broader than before. His jaw, his red mouth, the traces of stubble that hadn’t been there four years previously. He dragged his gaze past the long, smooth column of his neck and his rosily flushed cheeks, all the way to his eyes. They were old eyes. Older than the eighteen-year-old boy to whom they belonged.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he replied. “I know you’re sorry, and I know you have to leave.” He smiled, but it felt desolate. “I know that you’re reckless and brave and a _time-traveler_ , and that you’ll most likely be dead on some lonely planet millions of miles from here before the year is out.” His bright eyes met Obi’s, but his gaze was not searching, it was wide, wide open instead. “I know all of this, and if I am to be perfectly honest, it makes me feel as if the stars are being torn from the sky and the sea is draining away. That is to say,” he paused and smiled sadly, “I feel as though the world is ending and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it.”

He dropped his gaze.

Then: “Take me with you, this time?”

Obi had hoped he wouldn’t ask. And by that of course he meant that although he had wished for it and thought it about and longed for it during so many lonely nights and mornings and afternoons, that even now, now that the chance was right before him, begging to be taken, he still did not know what to say.

“You know I can’t.”

(What he meant was: _ask me again, I can’t say no to you twice.)_

“How could you possibly know if no one’s ever even attempted it?”

“There’s a reason no one’s ever attempted it, George. It’s not supposed to be done. I won’t risk harming you more then I already have.”

George sighed a long, drawn out sigh. “You know, I waited four years to ask you that question.”

"George—” 

“No, it’s alright. I knew you would say no, but I couldn’t help asking. It is, after all, the people we know best who have the largest capacity to surprise us. Goodness,” he said. “Isn’t it a shameful thing, for the next in line to the throne to be so willing to leave his country behind?”

He spoke like a king, Obi thought. All his pauses and breaths in the right places, shoulders drawn back, the suggestion of superiority in the tilt of his head, ascendancy scrawled in cursive across his brow.

The almost-king and the time-traveler watched each other for a few long moments, each of them realising that the other meant more to them than either could say. It was an expectant silence; a silence that demanded answers to questions neither knew how to go about asking.

“Can I see it?” whispered George, glancing at Obi’s left side.

Obi stiffened. George was talking about his arm. He’d been afraid of this; how was he supposed to explain a prosthetic arm humming with an alien voltage to a boy whose world didn’t even include electricity? 

“That is inadvisable,” he replied. “Anyway, you just stared into my soul,” he grinned. “I would like to retain any last vestiges of mystery I have left, thank you very much.”

George rolled his eyes and stepped closer. His fingers toyed with the hem of Obi’s shirt, fingers brushing hypersensitive skin.

“You were worried about something for so long. I—” he caught sight of the look on Obi’s face. “You’re still worried about it. What?” he asked, voice low. “You can tell me. Anything.”

Obi exerted every possible ounce of his self-control in an effort not to flinch.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Not when I’m here. With you.”

George ducked his head in embarrassment, smiling, dimples out in full force. Obi’s hearts did something complicated.

“You can touch me,” George said, and then blushed immediately. “I mean—”

Obi laughed, and then moved his hand to George’s neck.

“Okay,” he said. “Like this?”

George’s eyes were wide, staring into his, as though he feared if he did not then the moment would be broken and reality would rush back in to ruin things. He nodded slowly.

“You make me ridiculously happy, Your Highness.”

“I thought I told you not to call me that.” He said and pushed Obi backwards onto the bed in the middle of the room. Smiling serenely at Obi’s raised eyebrow—all traces of embarrassment gone—he said simply, “I waited four years for other things, too.” Tilting his head to the side he added, “People wear such strange clothes in the future.”

This was unchartered territory, but Obi soon found his voice. “If you don’t like my clothes, Your Highness, then I could always remove them.”

George grinned. “Or I could do it for you.”

“You’re not allowed to say anything about my arm.”

“You think I care about that? The fact that you are here is all that matters to me.”

“So, chivalry _isn’t_ dead, then.”

George’s face was an inch from Obi’s own.

“Make another joke as terrible as that, and I soon may wish to be.”

“Hah! At least you—”

“Stop talking.”

Obi’s smile was wicked and glorious. “Make me.”

 

***

 

The curtains had been blowing in the breeze from the open window, the bedspread strewn across the floor, when Obi had woken. George lay next to him, sheets tangled around his waist, looking, thought Obi, thoroughly debauched. He took in George’s sleeping form; the curve of his bare shoulder, the planes of his chest and his face. So much smoother in sleep, bathed as they were in starlight. As he studied George’s face, he tried to convince himself that he was doing the right thing. George deserved more than this. More than him. He didn’t deserve a boy that would die before the year was out. That was why he had to leave. Obi knew goodbyes uttered under the glaring light of the sun would strip back his excuses and expose him for the coward that he was. It was better, like this.

Obi touched his metal fingers to George’s flesh and blood ones and wondered how much the next jump would cost him.

A bell tolled dimly in the distance. It was time to go. As he dressed he caught sight of his darkened reflection in the mirror—his eyes slithers of reflected moonlight. _Would it really be better, though?_ he thought. _A man can only be alone for so long before he loses what little humanity he has left._ He couldn’t remember who had told him that.  

He pulled a coin from his pocket. To Obi, fate was the stuff of fables, and luck was a hollow promise made by those who hadn’t experienced enough of the bad kind. He had never trusted the universe enough to grant him either and so decisions made on the flip of a coin were familiar territory—each side representative of an opposite idea, or thought, or decision that had to be made. He wasn’t tempting fate, he was just ensuring that it never became overly interested in him. After all, a life composed entirely of random choices and split-second decisions couldn’t harm anyone but himself.

It was better, like this.

Anyway, if the coin told him to grant George’s wish, if the coin told him to abduct the heir to the throne of the British Empire, who was he to say no? He could simply return him to this time and place after a few years of good-natured roaming around the known universe—perhaps visiting some of the unknown bits if time allowed—and no one would be any the wiser. He took a deep breath.

If the coin landed with tails facing up he would leave and never return.

 The fugitive in him, the cowardice-drenched piece of his heart, begged him to do just that. Without flipping the coin first.

The part of his heart that he had given to the boy lying in the bed made him reconsider.

If the coin landed on heads, he would say yes to George’s question. The one he had waited four years to ask _._ _It is, after all, the people we know best who have the largest capacity to surprise us._ Obi would take George on the adventure of his life, and then—

“Obi?” George’s voice was thick with sleep. “Don’t leave, I—”

Obi froze.

George mumbled something else and shifted, dreaming on, a frown etched into his brow.  

Obi’s heart thudded like a jackhammer in his chest. He was still sleeping. Which meant that George dreamed about him leaving like he had the first time. A complicated and painful feeling rose up in Obi’s chest at the thought. He shoved it down. What would he have said if George had woken and asked what he was doing? Where he was going?

He wouldn’t have been able to answer.

Obi realized that this was a pivotal point on his journey through life. A multitude of futures spread impossibly before him, his life mapped intricately and inexplicably through a series of life changing events and decisions such as this one.

The coin felt as if it were burning where it lay in his palm.

As he flicked his wrist, the action was mirrored by infinite other versions of himself. His future hung in the balance. George’s future hung in the balance. The future of the entire population of Great Britain, of Europe, of this strange, lonely planet, hung in the balance.

He flipped the coin.

 _Oh,_ he thought, _right._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [city: The Lower Quarter]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

Asha lay awake, fully clothed under her blankets, the beginnings of a headache burrowing its way like a weevil through the back of her skull. She stared into the empty darkness of her bedroom and tried not to cry. She knew that she had to leave. Even if her mother had had her reasons for giving up her first child, Asha couldn’t sit by as the sister she had never known was ‘ _bound into permanent service’_. Enslaved. She knew what that word meant, she lived it every day. She would not allow her sister, who was far enough away from Gahraan to have a chance at freedom, to share her miserable fate. And maybe, by rescuing her, by escaping this planet, she could find her own piece of freedom out in the galaxy.

There was a satchel at the bottom of her bag made of a sturdy canvas, dyed black. It contained everything she imagined she would need for the journey she was about take. A flashlight, spare clothes, her portable tablet, her portable tablet’s portable charger. The locket her mother had given her on her sixteenth birthday, rations pilfered from the pockets of unsuspecting guards. Her modified gun that shot harmful, concentrated lasers in short bursts, her heavily annotated—and drawn in—manuals for fighter grade aircraft, that may or may not have also been stolen.

Turning onto her side she squeezed her eyes shut. This place had been her home for seventeen years. Seventeen long years of wanting an adventure to sweep her, breathless, from the sandy streets, or to at least die trying to be worthy of one. Seventeen years of wishing to leave it all behind. The cruelty, the hardship, the bleeding bruises and broken spirits.

She never thought it would be this hard.

Her mother would be distraught to wake and find Asha gone. But what else did she expect? Neither Anila nor the desert had raised a pacifist.  

With that thought, she sat up, throwing the covers off and swinging her legs over the side of her bed. She pulled on her combat boots. As she was lacing them up, she cast one last glance around her room, committing the scene to memory—four bare walls, grey and unyielding, no room for individualism, no room for anything at all, really, except obscurity. She would not miss it.   

Hauling her satchel onto her back, she walked out of her room for the last time.

Her mother’s room lay opposite her own. It was dark inside, the door ajar. Asha pushed it open and slipped inside. She pulled the note she had written from inside her pocket and placed it silently on her mother’s dressing table. It was so dark that she could barely see her mother’s face. Perhaps it was better that way.

She allowed herself a moment to collect herself and breathe in the sweet, flowery scent of her mother that never failed to remind her of home. Then she darted forward and kissed her mother’s cheek where she lay, unsuspecting.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll come back for you, I swear.”

When she left the house, she didn’t take her keys with her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

Obi stared at the coin. The profile of George’s father stared imposingly back at him. _I am about to whisk your son away to some marvelous corner of the universe,_ thought Obi. _Hah_.

Obi hated King George III, he was greedy and selfish and often cruel to George and his siblings, habitually forcing them to attend meetings in his stead so that he could pen furious letters to the colonies of America demanding that they submit to his tyrannical rule. But as Obi felt the weight of what he had chosen settle on his shoulders, he realized that he had done the right thing. Yes, it was a reckless and selfish and insane thing, but it felt right somehow. He smiled softly to himself, as a pleased, glowing warmth spread through his bones.

 _So_ , he thought, _this is what it feels like to have something to look forward to._

Obi slipped the coin back into his pocket, his rational mind taking over. He would have to steal the Artifact first, and then return to the palace to pick up George. It would be pointless to have George accompany him to the museum, as he would most likely get in the way, or have some ridiculous moral objection to stealing. Besides, there _was_ an element of danger, and Obi did not want to expose George to that side of his life any earlier than necessary. The jump itself would be perilous enough.

He took one last look at George’s sleeping form, before buttoning his coat and making his way over to the window. The last time he had done this had been four years ago. He had been falling in love with someone who he thought could never love him back, and he had, to put it simply, jumped ship, and run away.

This time, he vowed, climbing onto the windowsill and looking out into the night, he would return.

***

 

The British Museum was different every time Obi visited it: A new wing for the Parthenon Sculptures in 1970. A redesigned ceiling of tessellating glass in 2008. Pretty tour guides who were really robots, and all looked identical save for the colour of their eyes in 2101. That had been interesting, to say the least.  

Currently, it was just a single building, a seventeenth-century mansion named Montagu House. As he walked down the wide path, flanked on either side by two lawns, each bordered by neat hedgerows, he decided that he liked this version the best. Rectangular glass windows glinted dully in the moonlight, arranged in uniform rows. The building was three stories tall, but Obi would not be visiting the upper levels; his Artifact was being kept in the basement until it could be properly categorized and put on display.

Skirting a circular fountain, he eyed the nude statue rising out of a basin of water, set in the middle of the pathway, then smirked as he passed a statue of Sir Hans Sloane, the man who had founded the British Museum after his death by bequeathing his collection to the nation in his will. They hadn’t gotten his face quite right.

Obi’s smirk turned to a genuine smile as he fondly recalled Sir Sloane. He had been a strangely recurring figure in Obi’s life. Due to the nature of Obi’s abilities, and the strange places they took him, it was rare for him to encounter anyone more than once. But Sloane had been a collector of antiquities and rarities, finding genuine fascination in the things other people overlooked. And so, more than a few times, when questing to Jamaica or France in search of curiosities or new and undiscovered species, he would find an Artifact. He did not know what they truly were, but he did know there was something different about them. Something other; something strange. And so, he would put them in a crate in his attic, thinking them safe.

Until one night, when he caught a young, dark-skinned boy rifling through the crate with shaking hands, something strangely close to wonder in his eyes.

 

***

 

Obi and his father had lived in a farmhouse outside of London. There had been an apple tree in the garden, and a well with a heavy wooden bucket at the end of a cobbled, mossy path that Obi was forbidden to go near.

After his father had abandoned him, Obi had stayed in the farmhouse for three weeks on his own. Then the food had run out, and it had been the wrong season for apples and so he had left. His mind and heart had been so numb that he hadn’t paid any attention to where he was going. He just knew that he was going _somewhere_ , and that _something_ was beckoning him there. Four days later he scaled the side of a three-storey mansion and was climbing through a skylight into an attic so dusty it must have lain untouched for decades. Without thinking, Obi had walked straight towards a crate in the corner and laid his hand on it. It was warm to the touch and sent sharp, prickly jolts up his fingers. The crate was partially covered by a dusty white sheet. Obi flung it off. Dust caught in his eyes and stung, but he kept them open, peering desperately into the crate, as though he would discover all the secrets of the universe inside it.

 And, in a way, he had.

The box had been full of objects, glowing objects that weren’t of this time or place. They exuded the same reckless, magnetic energy that his father had, and it brought the sudden ache of tears to Obi’s throat. He laid his head on the box and closed his eyes, basking in the light of the objects and memories of his father.

It hadn’t taken long for him to fall asleep.

An observer of this quiet, private, melancholy moment might have seen only a little boy hunched over a box full of dusty relics, souvenirs from times long past. They might have seen the little boy curl his hand around the spine of a book, and sigh, almost contentedly. And, depending on the kind of person they were, they might have been astonished to see the little boy vanish into thin air.

Gone between one breath and the next.

Depending again on the kind of person they were, the observer might have mused upon the idea that while it seemed as though the boy had taken the book with him, perhaps it had been the other way around.

Obi had woken up several decades earlier, the book in his hand looking significantly newer than it had before.

He sat up on his knees and started digging through the crate. As his fingers grasped object after object, the blood in his veins seemed to flow faster. His knuckles brushed an ancient mirror, a locket rusted shut, a sealed envelope, an acorn. He felt as though he were on fire.

He had been entrenched up to his elbows in Artifacts when the door to the attic had burst open, admitting a portly man in a wine coloured waistcoat and emerald green trousers. A small woman peeked out from behind him, gripping a candle in one hand and a samurai sword in the other.

Obi dropped the brooch he had been holding and stood up.

“Who are you?” he had asked, incredulously. To his knowledge this house had been completely deserted.

The man gaped. His maid giggled.

Obi glanced around the attic. Something was different. Something was… _off_.

He looked down at his bare feet. The floor beneath them was lacquered to a shine, brown wood gleaming and lustrous. Gone was the dust and the layer of grime. He flicked a glance at the skylight he had entered from moments before. It was closed, although he was sure he had left it open, but more strangely perhaps was the fact that he could now see out of it. The glass was crystal clear, no longer obscured by the thick coating of soot that had stuck to Obi’s hands and grimed up his coat.

The room looked new and clean and fresh. He was noticing other differences now, too. Plum coloured lampshades instead of red, an armchair in the corner where previously there had been only sheet covered boxes.

Obi looked back at the man and his maid.

“What year is it?”

 

***

 

 

The click of bootheels on cobbles snapped Obi out of his reverie. Someone was rounding the corner of the museum, and if the other, softer set of footsteps were anything to go by, they were accompanied by a guard dog.

Obi sprinted up the stairs at the front of the building that lead to the entrance and tucked himself behind one of the stone columns in front of the door. He held his breath, heart pounding in his ears so loudly he was sure the guard must be able to hear it. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed the guard and his dog to keep walking.

The footsteps stopped. _Great_. Obi rolled his eyes, perhaps there was a God after all. _A God who hates me_ , thought Obi in annoyance.

The dog was visible now, snuffling around the base of the stairs where Obi had stood moments before. It was a bloodhound, whose gleaming black fur faded to a dark brown around its paws and ears. Obi was glad to be able to keep his enemy in his sights, but if he could see the dog, it meant the dog could see him if it looked in the right direction. It also meant its owner wasn’t far behind. Obi just hoped that whoever they were didn’t think to look upwards.

The guard’s footsteps drew nearer, and a hand appeared on the dog’s collar. The guard’s face and body were obscured by the column, but it seemed as though he was leading the dog away. After a few more tugs on the bloodhound’s collar the dog turned around and lumbered off.

Obi let out a breath.

He had always been more of a cat person, really.

Slipping out from behind the pillar, he checked his watch. He was five minutes behind schedule, which meant that out of the eight minutes he had originally had to steal the Artifact only three remained. It would be challenging. But Obi was nothing if not pedantic, and he knew there was a distinct difference between _challenging_ and _impossible_. He could do it, he just had to move now _._

Emptying his mind of all irrelevant thought, he recalled the Museum’s intricate blueprints, and brought them to the front of his mind. The door used by the staff was to be his entrance, too. Located around the back of the imposing building, it was one of four blind spots in the routine rounds made by the guards. He now had two minutes and forty-five seconds to get in, steal what needed to be stolen, and get out. The plan was simple, he had no security cameras or alarms to worry about. The only things standing in between him and his Artifact were the guards and their dogs. But the guards were only human, and humans made mistakes.

Obi inhaled, exhaled, grinned. He had missed this.

Reaching into an inside pocket, he produced a small silver whistle, brought it to his mouth, and blew. No sound pierced the still night, but he kept blowing until a dog’s sharp whine answered. The whine lowered in pitch and multiplied in number, until the growls and barks of all twelve bloodhounds echoed off the walls, breaking the blanket-like silence of the night. The combined shouts and frustrated cries of their distressed owners was like music to Obi’s ears.

The distraction had been achieved.

Tucking the whistle back into his pocket, he stepped out of the shadows. Keeping tight to the wall he edged slowly towards the wooden door used by staff. Two pins found their way from his sleeves into the locks, and a few sharp, professional twists later, both bolts slid open.

The twist of the doorknob in his hand was satisfying, to say the least.

Stepping smartly over the threshold Obi started his countdown, he had to be quick or else think of a satisfactory enough excuse that would explain his presence in the museum approximately eight hours after closing time, whilst simultaneously explaining away his night vision goggles and laser cutter. He turned left, swiftly exiting the antechamber and entering the first room of curiosities. His Artifact was sitting in the center of the room, held aloft on a granite pedestal and surrounded by thick glass. A gun. Its barrel was chrome coated and scratched, welding seams and shorn off barrel all but screaming DIY. Two characters were scratched hastily onto the underside of the barrel. ‘A.D.’ in the alphabet of the Universal Dialect. It was this that had attracted his attention. The Universal Dialect was instated in the furthest period of time Obi had ever travelled to—the 6000’s. He knew that if there was a cure, it would be there. He knew about the emperor’s magicians—magekind, they were called. When he had been younger, and searching for a suitable prosthetic, he’d heard rumors about them, and the cure-all they were working on. Through whispers in the streets and gossip from the skyway, as well as a slew of predictions from almost reputable sources, he’d narrowed it down to a five-year period in the early 61st century. 6075 was the year he was aiming for, but anything five years after that would do. He would get what he wanted and leave. The 61st century wasn’t exactly Human friendly, and not somewhere he wanted to spend any more time than strictly necessary.

Funny to think it would be the last place he ever visited outside of his own time.

Because that was the catch, the thing that he lost sleep over, the part of all this that made him wonder what could possibly be worth it…

If he took the cure-all, he would lose his powers. It was an exchange of energy, after all, and nothing packs a bigger punch than the energy inside a time-traveler using the mere idea of sentimentality to get the job done.

Obi hefted his laser cutter from one hand to the other and stepped closer, slipping a titanium mask over his face to protect his skin from the glaring heat of the laser. The beam cut a bright white line through the air, glass popping and bubbling as the laser sliced through with ease. Reaching through blistering the hole he had made, Obi plucked the Artifact from its pedestal and tucked it into an inside pocket in his coat.

Its particular brand of energy hummed against his chest, leaking memories that didn’t belong to him. They filled him with a sharp, prickling nostalgia for a place he had never been. The smell of sand and smoke clouding his nose a bright, blue sky flickered above him then winked out. Numbers and statistics filtered through his subconscious.

The acrid burn of a desert planet curled around the back of his throat.

The electric hum of machinery and the smell of ozone and destruction left in the wake of the Great War waged by Ai’Varek Thracin against the rest of the galaxy placed him somewhere at the dawn of the 61st century. He blinked, and the darkened museum filtered back into sight. So, the object belonged to— _would_ belong to—a girl, born in the aftermath of a cross galaxy war, living on a planet of desert and sand.

A girl, who was living during the exact time period that Obi had been chasing the past years.

He would return the Artifact to her and then hitch a ride to the planet at the center of the galaxy. _A’lkari_. The stronghold of the Consortium, and the only place he could acquire a cure for this disease that was eating him alive. He had never been this close before. Grim satisfaction settled over him like a shroud.

It was time to go.

***

 

As Obi slipped out of the Museum’s back door he fought to keep a furious grin off his face. Then he remembered it was nighttime, and therefore dark, and stopped fighting it entirely. He was going to wake George, and answer his question with the _yes_ he had withheld for so long.

He reached the river and paused, looking out over the glittering water made black by the reflection of the night sky. The Thames. One of the only constants in a city as restless as London. Breathing in the damp earth-and-mildew scent of the water, he pulled a penny from his pocket and clutched it tightly in his fist. Closing his eyes, he drew in one long breath. Obi had often thought that wishing was for fools, and those who hadn’t seen nearly enough of the world to realise that their desperate wishes could never come true. But now, under the faint moonlight obscured by the smog that smothered the city, he reconsidered.

 _Wishes were for dreamers and magicians, too_ , a small voice whispered in the back of his head. In fact, he had once met a shaman in a rainforest who dealt entirely in wishes. He had thought the man, sitting on a simple mat woven from straw, in a hut built from red mud and lush leaves, was something holy. So why couldn’t he believe the same of himself?

Obi admitted now that he had simply been too afraid to try. To throw out intention to the universe and wait with baited breath for a reply seemed to him the equivalent of starving a rabid beast, only to lock yourself inside its enclosure with a necklace of bloody meat strung around your neck.

“Don’t poke the bear,” he whispered to himself. It was an expression he had come by in America during the Cold War and had immediately loved. As he said it now, he meant, ‘What if I wish for the impossible, _and it comes true_?’

He relaxed his fist, opening his palm. The thin edge of the coin had left an angry indent in the calloused skin of his fingers. Sighing, he turned his back on the gleaming river and shoved the coin into the deepest recesses of his pocket. Somewhere nearby a violin started to play, its sad music floating out over the river and mingling with the moonlight. Cowardice triumphed again and again.

Obi let it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [city: The Lower Quarter]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

The dark streets of the Lower Quarter were not entirely deserted. Asha had never been out this late before, and she found herself musing that the quality of light was a little more liquid in the early hours of the morning. She could see the stars.

A shadowy form slipped out of a doorway and into an alleyway. Whoever it was didn’t notice Asha, and that was what she had been counting on. No one out at this time expected anyone else to be so completely reckless as themselves. And being out past curfew was recklessness of the very-nearly-but-not-quite idiotic kind. Asha was intimately familiar with that kind of recklessness; for her, it had ceased to be a fleeting emotion acted on in moments of insanity and had instead turned into a lifestyle. She wasn’t sorry.

Keeping close to the walls she set a brisk pace. She was headed to the Academy. Of course, she would end up here. Sneaking into the school in the dead of night to steal a spaceship. It was a new low, even for her.

Mentally, she pulled the up the blueprints for the school. Officially there were five floors, each housing a different department. There was the SkyLab and observation deck on the fifth floor, aeronautical engineering on the fourth, flight simulations on the third, and classrooms on the second and first. Her destination was the basement, or ‘Floor Zero’ as the students called it. You were only allowed access Floor Zero once you reached your third and final year of school. Asha had fantasized countless times about what might be down there. Secret tech, banned maps and ridiculously expensive equipment had featured heavily in such daydreams, but in reality, it was none of those things. Floor Zero was the floor for forgotten things. It housed relics and old parts rendered obsolete by age and rust. Most students wrote it off as a bit of a junkyard. But, to the right person—to Asha—it was a veritable goldmine. Not to mention her ticket out of here.

As she slipped noiselessly from shadow to shadow, the whispering sand piled against the side of the road swirling slightly in the breeze, she fondly recalled the first time she had broken into the aeronautical school. She had been fifteen, her anger at the rejection she had received one year before had aged like vinegar and turned into a brackish sort of bitterness that scorched her throat if she thought about it for too long. Her mother had once remarked that Asha’s ability to hold a grudge was like a cactus that stored water inside it’s trunk. Using it to stay alive when the going got tough, thriving off it when all the other plants had withered and died. Nothing, she had said, would get Asha out of bed faster in the morning than a chance at revenge.

The first night she had slipped out of her house and onto the silent, sandy streets, she had not left with the intention to break in _anywhere_. It had simply happened. One minute she was staring at the gates of the school, feeling righteously angry and very sorry for herself, and the next she was over the fence, her heart beating like a drum.

She had smiled then, and caught sight of her reflection in a window pane, flinching backwards from the girl she saw in the glass. That girl was feral and wild and _hungry_. She looked like a caged animal, freed. Asha Dhaka was _not_ that girl. Not yet.

That trip was the first trip of many, especially after she managed to gain access to Floor Zero. It was where she got a few of the rare parts for her projects.  She never sold any of the stuff she found there, though. There is a difference between reckless and stupid, after all, and Asha had turned toeing that particular line into an art form.

Now, as she followed the twists and turns of the Lower Quarter, walking the route she knew so well, she supposed she ought to feel a melancholy sort of sadness. This was the last time she would slip, unseen through these alleys.

Asha had always been a criminal, there was no doubt about that—she’d been hacking government databases in search of new knowledge since she could read—but as she moved wraithlike through the snaking backstreets she realized that, for the first time, she felt like one too.

***

 

Half an hour later, Asha was pressed up against the door of a classroom, hyping herself up to steal government property, and trying not to think about what would happen if she was caught.

 _You’ve got this. Yes, it is possibly the most illegal thing that you have done to date, but rules are made to be broken._ She cracked her knuckles. _The Consortium can choke on my exhaust. This is the right thing to do._

Oh, she was so scared.

The door swung open from the other side.

Asha fell, stumbling against the sudden space, her knees cracking against the floor. She looked up. A group of masked and hooded figures were crowded around her, bulky capes bristling with guns and knives and other assorted weaponry. The figure at the front was silent and clutching two premium grade blasters like he knew how to use them.

Asha stood. The group looked like scavenger thieves—indentured workers just like her during the day, who turned to crime at night for a multitude of reasons—who were probably, she realized with a sick lurch, in the school for the same reason that she was. One of the thieves gave an unintelligible grunt. The thief next to him flicked the safety off his blaster.

Asha didn’t stop to think, she just _did_.

Shoving the thieves aside, she bolted, sprinting through the classroom and out the door on the other side. The door frame sparked, chunks of plaster and cement flying to the ground as laser fire followed her down the hallway. Asha swore several times. The laser fire whined higher, and she ran faster than she’d ever run in her life.

Skidding around a corner, she grabbed a door handle, using her momentum to hurl herself into the elevator. Stabbing the button for floor zero, she scanned her fake ID and watched the doors close.

The nose of a rifle jammed into the last few inches of space left by the doors, firing wildly into the interior. Asha yelped, flattening herself against the door directly next to the flashing barrel—the only place out of reach.

 _No, no, no, no_. She hadn’t wanted to do this. Reaching into her satchel she pulled out a compact tablet of powder, her fingers smudged black where she touched it. She threw it out of the doors. Blackness engulfed the band of thieves. Cursing and swearing they stumbled around, trying to locate the source of the sudden darkness. _Sorry_ , she thought, and then she brought out the rest of her arsenal. Sliding the electromagnet out of the gap in the lift doors, she grimaced, and pulled the jumble of wires out of her satchel. There was a reason she wasn’t wearing anything magnetic.

“Please _, please, just work_ ,” she whispered. A jolt went through her. It felt like adrenaline, speeding up her heart, and sharpening her vision, but it wasn’t. “Work,” she breathed, and the word felt powerful, malleable. “ _Work_.”

She connected the circuit.

A blinding burst of light cut through the darkness, a bone-aching hum split the air. Vibration and magnetism bent the polarity of the space around her, and—

The magnetic field was so strong that Asha’s teeth began to ache, but the thud of weapons hitting the floor made it worth it. The rifle jammed into the doors was ripped free, attracted to the magnet like the rest of the weapons. Asha saw watches, rings, and coins stuck to the coils of the magnet, unidentifiable metal objects flying through the air to attach themselves to it. Despite everything, she grinned. The doors closed.

Breathing hard, she sighed in relief. She hadn’t really been sure that her magnet would work. Especially that well. But it had, and she didn’t have time to think about it. Not now.

The elevator doors opened onto Floor Zero. Stepping out, she scanned her surroundings. Not a soul in sight. _Good_. Rummaging in her satchel, she pulled out a jamming device and stuck it on the floor of the elevator. The lights inside it flickered out, and the level selection panel sparked, short-circuiting and going dark. She dug her flashlight out next, and clicked it on, the blue plasma beam illuminating the junkyard. Picking her way past burned out engines, gutted fuselages and other miscellaneous tech, she headed towards the hangar. There were two hangars on Floor Zero, which, currently, were both being used as the workshops of the Third-Year students for their final exams. Asha had been scoping the projects out for months, noting all the things they could have done better, all the things she had never thought of. All the things that impressed her (although this was very rare). When she opened the hangar door, she was satisfied to see that the project was finished. Well, nearly.

Pulling out her toolkit from her satchel, she shrugged off her jacket and got to work. She only had six hours to make this thing flight worthy. It was going to be a long night.

 

***

Asha sank to the ground with exhaustion. Her hands were throbbing, her knuckles sore and her palms black with grease. She wiped them on her pants absentmindedly and looked at the clock. She had finished with half an hour to spare. Smiling, she allowed herself a moment of pride, before groping for her water canteen in the bottom of her bag. Floor Zero was underground, and she suddenly found herself longing for the light of the moons.

“Hello, miss,” said a low, grating voice.

Asha jumped. Pulling herself to her feet, she scrabbled for her torch, then whipped around, clicking it on. The beam illuminated a scruffy face, half hidden by a grimy scarf. The intruder was male and bristling with knives. A machete hung from his belt, the edge crusted black with dried blood.

“Bet you thought you’d seen the last of us. Quite a nasty surprise you gave us with that magnet of yours.” He was flicking a small knife between his fingers, its short, wicked blade glinting in the light. Asha’s heart was beating so fast she thought it would burst pulsing from her chest and onto the ground. Her palms were sweating, her throat felt dry and choked.

“Nothing personal.” Her voice felt breathier than usual, like her lungs weren’t taking in enough oxygen. She was panicking.

“Well, I just spent three hours trying to pry each and every one of my knives off that bloody magnet, and then the next two hours,” he took a step closer, “trying to find you, miss.” He brought the knife towards his face and licked a line down the blade. “So, I’ve decided to take it personally, if that’s alright with you.”

Asha was breathing harshly now, sweat pouring down her back.

The man laughed, a low and dirty sound that made her hair stand up. She must have flinched because he laughed again, and then he lunged.

Asha was reduced to her most basic component; instinct. She threw herself to the ground, crawling underneath the ship, and out the other side. The man swore loudly, but she was already running.

 _Wait!_ She thought, _the ship, I can’t just leave it._ Then, _my sister, I—I have to go back._

Her run slowed to a jog, and she stopped. The frantic footsteps of the scavenger man weren’t far behind her. A bead of sweat rolled down her back. She spun three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, trying to find somewhere, _anywhere_ , to hide. A classroom—just across the hall, a door, partially hidden in shadow, but a door nonetheless. As quietly as possible, she crossed the hallway and tried the handle. The footsteps were getting closer and closer. She tugged the handle. It was locked.

“Shit,” she hissed. Desperate, she shook it violently before pulling her blaster off her belt, flicking the silencer on and blowing out the lock. It eliminated the option of sealing herself in until the danger had passed, but it might just buy her enough time to get into the air vents and away. She threw herself inside, closing the door behind her. The footsteps rounded the corner.

“Where are you, miss? I know you’re in here somewhere, you silly, weak little thing.”

She shuddered, choking back a sob, or a scream.

“I’ll find you soon enough, don’t worry. Soon one of my knives will be buried in you all the way to its pretty hilt and justice will have been served. Did you hear that, miss? _Justice._ ” The man laughed again, and Asha was choking on her own fear, nausea rising in her throat, filling her lungs. Her heartbeat like a drum in her ears, her own harsh breathing filling the room. She clamped a hand over her mouth, and pulled a chair towards her. Wedging it silently under the door handle, she thanked the stars that the school hadn’t had the funding for retinal scanning locks and had stuck with the good old lock, key and door handle that had thwarted her only moments before. She had barely taken two paces before the door gave a violent shake. Her stomach dropped into her feet, her vision blurring and snapping back into focus. She had never been this scared before in her life. It occurred to her horribly, that she had never said goodbye to her mother. She had taken most of her possessions from the house. The only thing of any importance that was left was the letter.

 _Dear Mother,_ it said.

The door shook again, the handle slamming against the chair.

_Please don’t hate me for this,_

She backed into a table, sliding across the floor with a deafening screech.

_But I believe I’m doing the right thing._

The man roared with laughter, and Asha bent double, heaving her fear onto the floor of the deserted classroom.

_I’ve gone to find my sister, the daughter you abandoned._

The back of the chair splintered, and the door swung open.

_I don’t blame you for what you did, but I cannot sit by and do the same. She is my sister, and she needs me._

The man ripped his scarf from his face and bared his teeth in a feral, grimacing mimicry of a smile. His teeth had been filed to points. Four of them were missing, bloody tissue trailing from the gaps, staining his gums red as the moon. _The magnet,_ she thought dazedly.

_I am not sorry for doing this, but I am sorry if my actions have caused you pain. That was never my intention._

The man grabbed a knife from his belt and walked towards her. Asha’s legs gave out even as she tried to run, to hide, to escape.

_Goodbye mother, I’ll be back, I swear it._

_Asha_

The knife was cold, then burning hot, when it sank into her side. The man was too close, and she could smell blood. Black spots swam across her vision, she could see his arm rising again, felt the descent as the knife tore through flesh a second time. The pain was a distant thing, nebulous and contained. She was so far away from it. Dimly, as if from underwater, or through smoke, she heard a blaster rifle fire. The man’s head jerked upwards, his eyes darting around frantically. He swore, then leaned into Asha’s face and breathed against her cheek, “I guess you’ll die slow then, miss. It’s been a pleasure.”

And then he was gone, and Asha was dying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

The muffled, swishing sounds of the nearby river had all but faded into the background when Obi felt the first wave of searing heat scald his chest. Burning waves of invisible fire licked across his skin, charring and blistering. Yelping, he tore at his coat, his shirt, trying to find the source of the scalding heat. His right hand closed around the grip of the gun, his vision blurring as white-hot pain shot over the skin of his palm. Obi bit back a scream, screwing his eyes shut and gasping in agony.

Dropping the gun to the floor he opened his eyes and was nearly blinded by the pure golden light radiating from the weapon. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the light cut off, as swiftly as if someone had flipped a switch. Blinking away the afterimage left by the bright light, Obi realized the gun had melted the cobbles around it.

He gulped.

Steeling himself, he turned his left wrist over to reveal the outline of a rectangular panel in the metal plating of his prosthetic forearm.

Obi’s feelings towards his prosthetic were constantly changing. He knew that his life would be a million times harder without it. He would have had to learn to re-calibrate his center of gravity, and his balance would have likely never been the same without intense training and physiotherapy—both things he didn’t have the time or funds to pursue. The two years he had had to live without his arm had been the two most hellish years of his life. Getting the arm fitted had been necessary, and above all an intense relief. He didn’t know where he would be today without it.

But.

Sometimes he couldn’t help but look at it and feel somehow… _less than_. Somehow inferior. He would look at the people he encountered every day and see something whole. He coveted their completeness. He craved the ease with which they inhabited their own bodies. The way they felt at home in their own skin. He wanted to be whole, too. Even though he had been through things that would have turned those so-called whole people insane, even though he had seen things that would make those whole people wish they could never see anything ever again, he felt inherently weaker than someone whose limbs were, at the most fundamental level, _theirs._

Shaking his head as though he could physically dislodge the unwelcome thoughts from his mind, he refocused on the task at hand.

Pressing two fingers to the panel, he applied pressure until he felt the _click_ of the mechanism holding the panel flush with the rest of the metal. The panel popped open to reveal a tangle of wires all glowing with the same blue energy, and, on the underside of the panel, nine silver buttons. He pressed the middle one and closed the panel. Flexing his fingers, he waited. Suddenly, what looked like mercury, or molten silver, was spilling out of pinprick sized holes in the metal of his arm. The molten substance raced down Obi’s arm, coating his wrist and fingers in shining liquid. Then it started to darken and become duller and duller, until the once gleaming liquid was a hard, matte black.

An exceptionally high-tech barrier against extreme levels of heat.

Obi reached forward and plucked the gun off the ground.

Unfortunately, the barrier was not meant to withstand huge amounts of volatile sentimental energy. As soon as Obi’s fingers closed around the gun he was whisked off his feet, winking out of existence like the last star at daybreak.

His last thought before he ceased to exist in that time and place was of a boy with chestnut hair and cool green eyes and a smile like the sun.

A boy who had held Obi’s soul in carefully reverent hands and looked at him with an emotion brimming in his eyes that Obi dared not name out of fear for the future.

A boy who was waiting for him in vain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [city: The Lower Quarter]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Asha Dhaka never thought that she would die surrounded by paper aeroplanes.

 The high-pitched blast of laser fire whined somewhere to her left, down another corridor of the labyrinthine building. As she lay on her back, winded, her vision swimming in and out of focus, all she could see were paper planes. They hung, suspended from the ceiling, a flock of silent, stationary birds.

In a world ruled by streams of code, even the paper was a sign of the academy’s elitism.

She clutched her side, dimly aware that it was aching. Her hands came away slick and red. She was bleeding out. She wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t sad or scared. She wasn’t much of anything in that moment.

A soft, shimmering light caught her eye. Lying next to her was her gun, a gun that had seen her through scrappy street battles and countless skirmishes, its aim true and unwavering. A gun that would have signed her death warrant had it ever been found by the authorities, but that had saved her life so many times the risk was worth it. It was the source of the shimmering, she noted absently. It was sort of pretty, the golden glow radiating from the gun like solar flare. The light brightened as she watched, blooming like a flower in the darkness of the deserted classroom.

Just beyond the glowing weapon, a shape flickered into being.

Asha blinked, her eyelids growing heavier by the second. She tried to stand, to sit up, to move even her fingers, but her body felt as though it were being restrained by invisible ropes. Her head suddenly weighed a thousand tons. The shape behind the glowing gun lapsed into non-being once more. Sliding sideways into the shadows and disappearing. Her mind registered belatedly that the shape had been a human, and that that human had been a boy in a very long coat.

The gun let out a flare of light, significantly larger than the previous one. Asha felt heat against her skin, like she was sitting next to an open fire. The gun was emitting some kind of energy. But why?

Suddenly, hands as strong as iron closed around her upper arms, forcing her into a slumped sitting position. Her instincts screamed at her to fight, to claw and scratch her way to freedom, and then to run. But her arms hung useless by her sides. How much longer, she wondered, until she would lose consciousness from blood loss? _Perhaps I already have_ , she mused, as strong arms wrapped around her waist and heaved her upwards, until she sat, fully supported by the leg of one of the desks. Blearily she saw that her rescuer was the boy in the long coat. His face was panicked, eyes wide. He was holding her gun. And it was growing steadily hotter and brighter in his hand. Except… that wasn’t _possible_ , she thought foggily. Her gun was still sitting on the ground, melting a hole in the plastic material of the floor.

Asha took a few moments to compare the two, her trauma-slow brain taking longer than usual to swim towards clarification. Drowsily, she came to a solution so improbable she nearly laughed. The two guns were identical—from the home-made silencer right down to the ‘ _A.D._ ’ etched onto the underside of the barrel. This was impossible, of course. She had only ever made one.

The boy cursed and dropped the blazing gun. When he stopped flapping his hands about long enough for Asha’s tired eyes to focus on them, she saw that they were shiny and burnt, angry blisters already forming from the heat. One of them was, anyway. The other was—

_Surely not?_

Digging through the pockets of his coat, the boy grunted in frustration, swearing under his breath as he searched for something—apparently to no avail.

Turning to Asha, as if suddenly remembering that he wasn’t alone, he frowned.

“Hey, hello?” He took three quick steps forward, then he shook Asha’s shoulders. “We need to leave otherwise we’re going to die.” When Asha didn’t respond, the boy frowned harder, his eyes roaming over her body until they came to rest on her hands and the dark red blood slicking her fingers.

“Oh God,” he grimaced, “can you even hear me?” Asha blinked once. It was as close to a nod as she was going to get.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” he smiled grimly. “Listen, I’m not sure what’s going on, but I think I may have possibly created a paradox. I’ve arrived too early in your timeline: you haven’t lost your gun yet. I was supposed to return it to you. The same object can’t exist twice in the same time and place without there being some kind of,” he gestured around for the right words, “cosmic retribution.”

Asha was too far gone to process words any longer than two syllables. She blinked at him again.

“This has never happened before, I’m so sorry. I think there’s going to be an explosion. A big one. I’m certain of it, actually, and if I don’t figure out a way to stop it, we’re both going to die. Us, and half the city. Boom,” he said. “Gone.” His face fell. “I don’t even know where to start.”

The guns had grown brighter, their combined heat raising the temperature of the room to nearly unbearable. Asha noticed that the boy was missing an eyebrow. Her eyelids were so heavy. She closed her eyes, and must have momentarily lost consciousness, because when she opened them the boy was sitting next to her, a mechanical insect poised in his palm. The insect was roughly the same length as his thumb, and it was moving, clicking and shifting its wings as though alive.

Asha had the eyes of a worker whose life depended on her ability to identify useful machine parts, and instantly she could tell that the insect was something special. A miracle of shifting clockwork, an intricate thing pulled straight from an inventor’s dream. Golden gears turned in perfect revolutions, its wings _,_ delicate and fluttering, inlaid with glass that didn’t so much reflect the light as refract it, throwing shards of luminescence onto the boy’s face and into his eyes. It was a glorious, pocket-sized fusion of modern and archaic engineering. Its eyes were set with softly glowing amber, twin fires burning inside the perfectly formed chamber of its skull.

The boy blew out a breath, the whisper of air escaping his mouth suddenly amplified over the distant roaring of blood in Asha’s ears. She realized belatedly that silence had descended over the school. The white noise in her skull receded slightly, her thoughts briefly clearing.

Asha’s eyesight gained a new clarity, everything coming into brilliant, shining focus. The mechanical insect unfolded its wings and took flight, gliding through the air. It’s course set, it seemed, on the two guns that now lay side by side.

Tears sprung to Asha’s eyes as she shielded her face from the glare. They had become too bright to look at. Trying to make out the little flying machine was like trying to track a bird’s course in front of the sun.

Her hand was warm and sticky where it pressed against her side. The sharp iron tang of blood was unmistakable.

Everything was too bright, and she was so tired.

Her vision clouded, and her hands shook. She must have started to hallucinate, because the last thing she saw before her eyes fluttered shut, was a bubble of amber light. It expanded like liquid glass, engulfing the two guns. The light inside the bubble rippled and intensified, growing brighter and whiter. Then, when it seemed like the light couldn’t blaze any more intensely, a distant boom sounded in her ears, as though something far away had imploded. She knew it had come from inside the bubble. This delicate looking sphere of crystal had, impossibly, contained the deadly explosion the boy hadn’t known how to fix.

With knowledge of her safety easing the buzz of adrenaline through her veins, Asha’s eyes finally closed, and she slept. Underneath a ceiling of paper planes, with the searing heat of a paradox scorching her skin and a mortal wound in her side, next to a time-traveler within whose hands she had placed her life, she slept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [in orbit]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

The girl’s dusty planet was a mere speck in the distance when Obi allowed himself to look out of the ship’s window. He scrubbed a hand across his face, and through his short hair, blinking in disbelief. He was in shock. The events of the past few hours seemed like some kind of insane hallucination.

 _Houston,_ Obi thought _. We have a massive fucking problem._  

He squeezed his eyes shut, the juvenile part of him hoping that he would wake up back in 1812, back in Buckingham House, back in the impenetrable sphere of safety that George always seemed to provide.

Instead he opened his eyes to find that he was still illegally orbiting a planet he had no interest in orbiting and was also still the reluctant custodian of an unconscious teenage girl who was bleeding through her bandages all over the floor of his shiny, new, and dubiously acquired spaceship.

He would have to change her bandages again soon. She groaned. Maybe sooner than soon.

At least he knew she was still alive. He was surprised that either of them were. They both should have died inside that classroom, incinerated in the explosion generated by the paradoxical energy of the guns. _Gun_. It was the same object. It hadn’t been duplicated or copied or cloned. It was a singular object existing twice in the same reality at the same time. It was impossible, and yet it had happened.

“ _Warning:”_ Obi recited quietly, _“some Artifacts can be volatile, and cases have been reported of Artifacts arriving too early in the timeline of their owners.”_ It seemed like he had had the fortune of stumbling across one such Artifact. Recalling the searing heat of the energy, Obi ran his metal fingertips over the blisters that had formed on the palm of his right hand when he had lifted it to shield his face from the heat. They were raw and red, stinging as his fingers made contact. He thought of George waking up alone and disappointed but ultimately not surprised.

Obi decided that ‘volatile’ was, in fact, the understatement of the century.

He wanted to hit something.

A familiar whirring sound brought a small smile to his face, despite his discomfort. Reaching inside his coat pocket he dug out what looked like a ball of miscellaneous machinery, until it unfurled its wings. The insect’s amber eyes glowed, almost mischievously.

“Oh, you smug bastard,” murmured Obi. “What? You think because you saved my life a couple of times you can make fun of me? Is that what this is?”

The insect shuffled its wings, the tawny crystals of its eyes flashing with amusement. Well, amusement was what Obi chose to see. Wandering the galaxy with only a mechanical insect for company was lonely work. He had learned to seek companionship wherever he could find it, like a plant growing through concrete seeks the sun.

He tried to convince himself he didn’t need anyone but himself. His conversations with the little flying machine suggested otherwise.

“Whatever,” Obi said, but his tone was fond, and his eyes were warm. “You keep telling yourself that I need you. A few more seconds and I would’ve saved all of us. I had the situation under control, you just didn’t let me prove it.”

The insect whirred again and took flight. It landed on the girl’s shoulder, tilting its head to the side.

Obi scratched the back of his neck with his metal arm.

“Yeah… I have no idea what to do with her,” he grimaced slightly. “I couldn’t just leave her there and steal her ride, I mean, I assumed that’s what she was there for. Why else would she be in an aviation school classroom late at night? She was probably breaking her city’s curfew. You don’t do that if you’re planning on returning home,” he shrugged. “I’m guessing that means she can fly the thing. Hell, I knew just about enough to get us off the ground and into orbit. If she’s just as useless…” He shook his head and sat down. “What if I’ve ruined everything?”

The girl was slumped against the wall in the room past the cockpit. Her thick, curly brown hair was pulled back into three braids that clung to her scalp, each tied off at the nape of her neck with a strip of fabric. The remaining hair hung in ringlets over her shoulders, like a cloud. It looked knotty and slightly wild. Obi wondered vaguely when the last time she had brushed it was. Her plain khaki clothes reminded Obi of nurse’s scrubs. He wondered if she had ever worn anything else. Her skin was brown like Obi’s, but where his was closer to onyx her skin was orange topaz, or the warm russet brown of autumn leaves.

The girl groaned and mumbled something. She had shifted position, her forearm now bared. Obi saw a series of numbers tattooed onto the inside of her wrist, and a tally underneath it. There were seventeen lines. Probably her citizen number followed by her age—he winced, remembering humanity’s fate. If it was the early sixty-first century they were in, then humans were enslaved and the planet he had just visited must have been Gahraan—the home of the indentured human race. The numbers were more likely a barcode of sorts. The Consortium liked to keep track of its possessions, after all. It must have been incredibly, indescribably hard, he thought, growing up as what was essentially a slave. And with dreams as big as hers…

 _No,_ he thought, as the images forced their way into his head, _no please—_

 _Sand. Sand in her eyes, sand in her mouth, sand in her hair but_ dreams _in her heart. A pilot, she wanted to be a pilot—_

 _No,_ Obi begged of his mind _, please, not again._

_What are you? screamed a voice, reptilian and cold. Nothing. I am nothing._

_Electricity crackling, skin searing. The dead of night, now. A fence, jump it. A door, hack it wide open. A line of code, string it to together, make it sing. Complex aeronautical diagrams and hyperspace enabling equations, easy, easy. How about a real challenge, huh? Memorise it all, memorise it all and one day—_

Obi wrenched himself away from the things he shouldn’t know. The memories slipping into his mind, unbidden. He had thought he had this under control.

Wild, disjointed images of people he had never met and places he had never been whipped across his retinas.

 _She never told you she wanted to be a pilot_ , said a malicious voice in the back of Obi’s head. _She never told you anything about herself, yet you know it all, somehow._

Frantically, he struggled to come up with the small fact or detail that had given it away, trying desperately to pull together a sound deduction, even as his mind supplied facts that he didn’t, _shouldn’t_ , know.

He had been calling her ‘the girl’ since he had rescued her, but he knew her name. Asha Dhaka. Daughter of Anila Dhaka. Second generation Human indenture. Slave. An aspiring pilot if the unbidden images of schematics and blueprints filtering into his brain were anything to go by.

His hands itched.

This hadn’t happened in a while. Usually only when he was genuinely curious about something, and as a general rule, Obi tried not to be curious about anything. Curiosity killed the cat, after all, and he did not plan on sharing the same fate. He was too hilarious and too handsome to die this young. He would be doing the world a disservice.

But the things he knew were undeniable.

They crowded out the thoughts that belonged in his head and clamored for his attention.

It was a violation of the girl’s—Asha’s—privacy, but he couldn’t help it.

Even before his time-travelling, space-hopping, tendencies had presented themselves Obi had been able to glean small pieces of information from people he talked to. He had always viewed it as an extra sense. Just like he could see the colour of a person’s eyes, or hear the dripping of water from a tap, he could tell where someone had been born, or their mother’s maiden name. At times it was useful, but mostly it felt like an invasion of someone’s sacred space. And now, as he glimpsed the terror of the life that she had lived…

The fate of humanity was one that constantly gnawed at him. Growing up black in nineteenth century Britain had been a brutal lesson in imperialism, and Thracin’s rule epitomized this ideology. Obi had seen sentients for sale next to plasma engine parts, the sight of the flashing digit signs above their heads conjuring memories of bare and bloody feet sliding across saltwater-slick ship decks chained together with irons. He had seen guards in black and white stripes clutching electric batons in scaled hands, transporting ship loads of people packed in like cattle and remembered suddenly the raised scars of whip lashes on brown backs in the sun. Now he saw a teenaged girl, barely seventeen, with a barcode tattooed on her skin and callouses on her young hands and remembered with a lurch the sight of thin wrists rubbed raw by rusted shackles on a dock at high noon overlooking the Thames. Even in sleep, her face looked hopeless. He had seen that resigned, deadened, _beaten down_ look in so many eyes and on so many faces across the centuries that he was beginning to wonder what it was about dominance that made people so cruel.

And this girl had lived that life. Had lived the life he had run from, avoiding at all costs in a city that seemed so badly to want otherwise.

The worst part was that he had never travelled further than this. 6047 was his furthest jump to date, and so he was about as privy to this future as the people destined to live it.

The girl grumbled something in her sleep, shaking Obi out of his thoughts and bringing him back to the task at hand. Her wounds needed re-dressing and the bandages weren’t going to tie themselves.

He stood up, stooping to fit his lanky frame in a cockpit obviously not designed for standing in. Reaching towards the ceiling he popped open the panel marked with the galaxy-wide sign for medical aid and rummaged around inside for bandages and a handy variety of butterfly stitch that didn’t so much as encourage a cut to close as persuade it into healing completely.

After having found what he was looking for, he approached Asha and crouched by her side. Tentatively, he lifted the hem of her blood-soaked shirt, and placed his hand at the base of her spine. Clinically, carefully, he unwrapped the bandages from her torso to reveal a jagged mess between two of her lower ribs. He reached behind him and pulled a sterilizing wipe from the medical kit. He managed to clean away most of the dried blood, and saw that the cut, while not exactly shallow, wasn’t deep enough for him to be overly worried.

He was applying the last of the butterfly stitches when she jerked awake with a start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fourteen

[planet: Gahraan]  +   [in orbit]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Asha woke up to find her shirt hitched up over her undergarments, and cool, calloused fingers rubbing at her stomach.

_What the—_

Her eyes flew open, hands scrabbling for her gun where it usually rested in its holster at her waist when she snuck out. It wasn’t there—so she settled for a two-palmed shove against the chest of her attacker. He sprawled backwards, landing awkwardly on his back, a startled cry issuing from his mouth. Asha’s side throbbed, but she forced herself to stand. Staggering to the other side of the small room she tried to drop into an unweighted fighting stance, sharing her body weight equally between her two feet. She wasn’t sure whether to push forward on the attack or fall back into defense. There were too many unknowns. She didn’t even know where she was.

 _Intimidate_ , she thought. _Pretend you’re something to be afraid of, and soon people will start to believe you._

“If you come near me again,” she rasped, “I will claw out your throat with my bare hands, and then,” she swallowed painfully, “and then I will do the same thing to your eyes.” She lifted her hand from where it was pressed against her side and pointed at the boy sprawled out before her. His eyes were wide, his eyebrows raised comically high, and he was… smiling?

“Do you think this is funny?” she snarled. “I will tear you limb from limb, I will—”

The boy snorted, then whipped his hand up to cover his mouth as though trying to force the errant sound back inside. He made to stand up, but Asha jabbed her finger menacingly in his direction.

“Okay! Okay! God, _calm down_ ,” he said. “Wait no, I didn’t mean that, _argh_ , I can be so condescending, um—” he shook his head. “Let me start that again,” he rearranged his legs so that they were more crossed than sprawled and cleared his throat. “I know exactly what you must have thought was going on just now, but I can assure you, it was the complete opposite.”

Now it was Asha’s turn to snort.

“Are you honestly trying to convince me that I didn’t just wake up with your hands under my shirt, because—”

“God! No. No, no, no, _no_.” he shuddered. “Just, no,” he massaged his temples with his fingers, exhaling gently. “I was dressing your wounds. Look. I was touching your stomach in a totally kid-friendly way, well maybe not _completely_ kid-friendly because of all the blood and—and gaping flesh, but you know what I mean. Please don’t think it was anything more,” he smiled weakly. “Also, I don’t exactly swing that way? Your way, I mean, although technically I do, in fact, swing your way, as in the same way as you? But like, not actually _your way_? Um, I like guys. I’m gay. Wow that was easier. So,” he grimaced slightly, “there’s that.”

Asha blinked.

“Oh, um, well, I see. Thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot,” she smiled, but it was more like a brief baring of her teeth than a genuine smile. Although, as she lifted her shirt and saw the butterfly stitches that had begun the painstakingly slow process of knitting her skin back together, she supposed that she did have a lot to be genuinely thankful for.

Feeling a little more at ease, she leant against the metal wall. Underneath her elbow something gave way with a sharp _click_ , and then the wall behind her was hissing upwards and abruptly, gloriously, she was looking out at the stars.

“I’m in orbit?” she whispered, feeling faint. “I—I made it?”

She felt faint as she drank in the seen before her, stars strewn like diamond dust against the crushed velvet nothingness of the cosmos, distant solar systems like diaphanous clouds, the planets within them specks of cobalt blue and soft gold. Flecks of green and swathes of indigo hung immobile in the darkness.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

“Sure is.”

Asha tore her eyes away from the window with some difficulty and turned to stare at her apparent savior.

He was staring at the ground.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He looked up and smiled, “Isn’t that the million-digit question.”

Asha realized that there was a nearly imperceptible delay between the boy’s mouth moving and the words reaching her ears. The translator chip implanted in her brain was turning his words inside out and rearranging them so she could understand. He had effortlessly switched from the Universal Dialect into what must have been his first language. That was rare. The entire galaxy had been conquered by the Consortium, who had instated the Universal Dialect as the official language of all the systems that comprised it. Classes were taught in it, signs reprinted, books burned and documents destroyed. It was the only language they would lawfully recognize.

It was dangerous to speak any other.

Curiously, she had recognized one of the words; _dollar_. Her chip had translated it to _digit,_ the universal currency of the galaxy. She knew the _dollar_ was an ancient form of currency used in several countries on Earth before the worldwide currency had been introduced, but why was _he_ using it?

As though the boy had noticed her hesitation, he swapped back to the language they shared.

“My name is Obi Amadi,” he said warmly, sticking out a hand. Asha eyed it warily until the moment passed and he dropped it, looking awkward and slightly affronted.

“I’m a time-traveler,” he shrugged. “Not a very good one, though. That’s why I’m here.” He grimaced, “Usually when I find an object whose energy I can harness and use to jump into the future or the past, I can control when it happens. I can _choose_.” He sounded confused and angry. “I have broken the same promise twice. What kind of person does that make me?”

Asha was silent.

“I am going to be brutally honest with you,” he said. “I am not alright, but then I suspect that you aren’t quite alright either. At this point in time you are collateral damage to me, although for reasons I can’t quite explain, I want to trust you.” His eyes met hers grimly, and for a second, she saw herself in his gaze. “I need to get to Thracin’s stronghold. A’lkari,” he continued, and Asha felt her heart beat faster in her chest, _what were the odds—?_ “and I only have a month to get there. If I don’t I will die. If I don’t—” he frowned. “If I don’t, I’ll have betrayed the only person who ever truly cared for me.” His intense, grey gaze intensified. “And I cannot allow that to happen. Don’t ask me how I know, but I am aware that you are more than capable of flying this ship. I also know that you need to get to the same place as I do, but I’ll let you tell me why.” He gestured around, “At the risk of sounding like a not-so-dastardly-villain from a cheap BroadcastFilm… all of this,” he smiled, “could be yours. If you agree to work with me.”

Almost against her will, Asha followed the arc of his hand, taking in the rest of her surroundings. “I’ve wanted to fly one of these things ever since I first saw the blueprints,” she murmured, and it was true. She’d been twelve and full of hope, her face pressed against the grimy window of the third factory she had worked in, fingernails bloody, eyes straining, trying to catch a glimpse of the students across the compound. The specially selected few who were training to become a part of the Thracin’s indomitable military force. She barely noticed that they looked nothing like her. That they were built differently and shaped differently and had never been put to work like she had. Her own ferocious desire to prove herself had mingled with her innate sense of heroism, and a resolve to help those who couldn’t help themselves. The three deepest wishes of her conscious mind had mixed together in that stuffy warehouse, to create a heady mixture so intoxicating Asha wasn’t sure if she’d ever come down from the high it had given her. She had felt the exhilarating passion and heart thudding _what ifs_ that came when you thought you might one day be given the chance to change the world. When you thought you might be able to _save it_.

It was also true that there was a reason she had never piloted any kind of aircraft before now. She had wanted to breach the atmosphere and fly to lands unknown. She had wanted to save her tiny piece of the universe, but the universe had had other plans for her.

Asha realized faintly that she had been staring at the floor, which was now glistening with small droplets of water. She sniffed, and realized her throat ached in the way throats sometimes do after crying. Her fingers, when they touched her cheek, came away wet.  

“I’m sorry,” It was the boy—Obi. “I didn’t think before I put you in the ship. It was just the quickest way to safety.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand. Asha noticed that it was covered in bandages that disappeared under the long sleeves of his coat. She could almost see something shining underneath—

“Are you crying because you miss your family, and I’ve practically abducted you? Because we can go back. I mean, we’ll probably get shot out of the sky, but we could, erm, we could try.” He dropped his hand, shoving it into his pocket. “If you wanted.”

Asha looked up through wet eyelashes. Viciously, she scrubbed a hand across her face, wiping away the tears and any other signs of weakness.

“No, it’s fine,” her voice sounded small and very sad. The enormity of the universe and the impossibility of her situation were threatening to overwhelm her. She could not let that happen. She thought about her sister, the sister she had never met, but vowed to find. She thought about her mother’s grief-stricken face, and her own promise to return. There were other people depending on her now. She couldn’t afford to be weak. “I’m alright. This is exactly where I need to be. You have nothing to be sorry for.” She smiled, willing the tears away, willing the fear and the uncertainty away. She injected a dose of her special brand of ferocity into her smile and lifted her chin.

Thrusting out her hand, she looked the boy full in the face. Her false-confidence-filled earth brown eyes met his determined, ancient grey ones.

“I’m Asha Dhaka,” she said, “pleased to meet you.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifteen

[planet: none]  +   [in orbit]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Obi sat behind the cockpit, his back against the dividing wall.

_I’m Asha Dhaka. Pleased to meet you._

Was he pleased? He wasn’t sure. She was terrifying, that much was certain. She had threatened to claw out his eyeballs. _Jesus._

But there was something in her face. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but it made him want to trust her. And he had, albeit tentatively. Enough to let her into the cockpit, turn on the cloaking function of the aircraft—she’d called it a ‘Kimitz-class fighter ship’, which Obi fervently hoped meant it had at least one really big gun—and whisk them out of orbit, speeding into the vast nothingness of space.

He decided to postpone judgement until after they’d been through a few more life-threatening situations. Preferably, he mused, at least one where she was conscious.

He looked out of the window, allowing his thoughts to wander. He abruptly remembered the unexpected smoothness of George’s skin, the way their fingers fit together.  The way his laughter sounded like honey and velvet. Obi felt a slow, painful tightening in his chest. Why was it that thoughts of George insisted on ambushing him during his rare quiet moments? Lying in wait, almost Obi thought, like animals in the dark, eyes glowing softly with memories of safety.

Pouncing the moment Obi turned his back.

Except, that wasn’t entirely true. Obi often wondered if his thoughts were drawn to George during these quiet times because shrouding himself in near silence was the best imitation of George’s soothing presence. The Prince had always been able to fade the commotion and turbulence of Obi’s everyday life into the background. Wearily, Obi realized that the memories of George didn’t pounce when Obi turned his back. They pounced the moment Obi opened his arms and welcomed them home.

It seemed there was a reason Obi craved the silence, after all.

Breathing deeply, he directed his thoughts away from Earth, and towards another source of pain and confusion. His father.

You couldn’t say he didn’t lean towards the self-destructive.

Obi knew next to nothing about the man who had abandoned him. There were only three things Obi was really certain of where his father was concerned, and they were based off strong hunches rather than fact, but he clung to them, nevertheless.  

He knew the mechanical insect had belonged to his father. This Obi was certain of. Whenever he brought the insect out he got the strange sense that there was someone watching him, just out of sight. A figure draped in shadow, that hovered in his periphery, silent, observant. At times when he was very lonely, he thought it might be his father watching him from beyond the grave. It was a morbid thought, but it was the foundation of the second thing that Obi was sure of.

His father was dead. He had to be. Why else would he leave an eight-year-old boy, alone and helpless in an abandoned farm house in 1802? Obi wasn’t stupid, he knew that people of his kind—Guides, as the book called them—were sought after. He had seen posters and holographic advertisements, seeking Guides or time travelers. It seemed they went by many names throughout the galaxies. He had once seen a stall selling the bones of ‘space-walkers’ in a marketplace. The alien manning the stall had called out in broken Universal Dialect, asking if Obi had wanted to walk through space and time. According to the alien, all he would need was a bone of one of these mythical creatures and the laws of the universe would cease to apply to him.

That was the first time he realized that his life may be in danger, simply because of the blood that ran in his veins and the bones beneath his skin.

He had never had another encounter with a person who saw him as a commodity to be chopped up and sold. Perhaps his father hadn’t been so lucky.

He remembered thinking that the people who hunted him, and others like him, probably wouldn’t want anything to do with him, or his blood, as tainted as it was with disease. This was the third thing he knew to be true.

He was sick. It was his father’s fault that he was sick, and he would never forgive him for this. Obi’s father had abandoned him before his abilities had manifested themselves, and so he had had no one to teach him about what he was. He was certain his father must have been the same. He couldn’t remember much about him, though. He thought that he must look like him, the same grey eyes, and dark brown skin, the same angular jaw. The father of his memories was a kind man in a trench coat who tucked him into bed at night and didn’t quite _fit_ into their small farm house just outside of London. It was as though he was made for bigger things. Now at least, Obi knew that he was.

He also knew how completely unbearable the need to jump would have been those eight years his father had been stuck in rural England raising a child.

 _Well_ , thought Obi, _I’m not a child anymore. I don’t need him._

 _No_ , whispered his inhibitions, _you’re a confused young man, who’s growing sicker and sicker every day, and whose only hope of salvation lies at the center of the galaxy, on the moon of a planet that is also a prison and the most heavily guarded place to ever exist._

Obi grimaced and stood. _Technicalities_ , he thought, shoving them out of his mind. It occurred to him that there were two more things he knew about his father. His name was Alarick, and even if he had left Obi, he had also loved him unconditionally.

Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to be lulled by the distant humming of the small ships engine. Asha was humming to herself, a simple lullaby. She could certainly carry a tune, thought Obi. It was strangely soothing. 

He was asleep within five minutes, sinking into the one place he couldn’t avoid his past: his dreams. Memories of times long gone twined spectral hands through his veins and tugged at his subconscious.

He was helpless to resist.

***

 

“What year is it?” Obi had asked, eyes alight.

The portly man had sputtered and gaped, blinking rapidly.

“What year is it?” he repeated, looking at his maid, who Obi immediately judged to have a kind face. “Can you see him, too, Bridget? There is a lost little boy in _our attic,_ and _he_ is asking who _we_ are, and _what year_ it is?”

The maid winked at Obi, then nodded.

“I do believe you are correct in those observations, sir,” she said.

The man shook his head, disbelieving. His maid—Bridget—patted him lightly on the arm. “I also believe the polite thing to do would be to call for tea,” she whispered, “sir.”

The man sputtered.

“I’ll fetch it for you,” said Bridget. Obi was sure he heard her giggle again.

Obi and the man faced each other from across the room.

“So—” Obi started.

“It’s 1733,” said the man suddenly.

“Oh,” said Obi. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m bloody well sure, boy.”

“Well then,” Obi said, “pleased to meet you. My name is Obi Amadi. I was born in 1794, and,” he paused for effect, “I can _read.”_

Sir Hans Sloane looked at the little boy he had found in his attic and nodded slowly.

He didn’t understand why such absurd things always happened to _him._

A bell rang somewhere in the house.

“Ah,” said Hans, “that will be Bridget calling us to tea. Follow me.”

He turned on his heel and left, and a few minutes later a quicker, lighter set of footsteps started behind him.

They descended four sets of stairs. Books lined every wall, paintings hung in huge frames. A case of preserved butterflies glinted like jewels in the candlelight. They arrived on the ground floor and entered a plush room. The walls were decked out in tastefully patterned wallpaper, the carpet a deep red. Two armchairs sat opposite a crackling fire. A table was positioned between them, and on it lay a pot of tea, sugar, and two cups on saucers, silver teaspoons balanced on the rims. Obi had never see such a display of grandeur. 

A short while later they were sipping their drinks and staring into the fire.

Hans watched the boy. He was painfully thin, and… twitchy. His eyes were darting around the room, fingers tapping on his leg.

“So,” said Hans, “what brings you to my residence in the middle of the night?”

Obi stared at him solemnly. Assessing and evaluating. He had heard what happened to kids who looked like him. He knew about the ships and their cargo.

“Are you going to sell me to become a slave?” he asked. “ _Don’t lie_.”

Hans inhaled sharply. His eyes were wide, his hand gripping the armrest of his chair.

“If I told you _no_ , that I would never dream of it,” he said quietly, “would you believe me?”

Obi’s fierce little face looked into Hans’ age-lined one. They stared and stared and stared, until Obi broke the silence.

“Yes.”

And then he told the old man everything that he knew to be true.

When he was finished, it was dawn.

Hans put down his teacup.

“Would you like to stay for a while?”

Obi’s eyes widened even more. He nodded.

“Yes, please.”

He had lived with Hans for seven years. He had been the father Obi had never had, but more importantly he had been a friend. Bridget had been like a sister, she was only seven years his senior, having been sent by her family to find work as a maid in London at age fourteen. Hans, it seemed, had a knack for finding the people who needed him most. Then, one day in 1740, on what must have been his fifteenth birthday, Obi had been going through the box of his possessions he had amassed over the years and come across the clothes he had been wearing that night Hans had discovered him in the attic. Holding up the small, grubby pair of trousers, he had allowed himself a minute to reminisce. To think about his father. _Would he be proud?_ Obi had wondered. _Would he want to know the person I have become?_

As he was folding the trousers away, a small key had fallen out of the pocket. It had lain on the carpet, tarnished copper shining dimly in the candlelight. Obi had reached down to pick it up, but stopped, fingers a breath away. The key had been his old house key, he remembered now. The wave of nostalgia that hit him caused tears to threaten behind his eyes.

He’d picked it up.

Obi didn’t believe he would ever forget the second jump he had ever made. It felt like his first in many ways, as he was at least conscious for it. The memory was always bitter sweet, as it had meant being ripped away from Bridget and Hans, who were as good as family by then, no, _better_. But it had meant that he had met George, and that was worth almost everything.

He’d picked up the key, and the room around him had dissolved, his vision blurring, wind whipping around him. Then pain. Pain of the unimaginable kind. Then he was lying on a cold, dark street, had lost all sensation in his left arm—couldn’t feel it, couldn’t move it, couldn’t _think—_

He’d lost consciousness and regained it several times throughout a night which had felt like it lasted lifetimes. He had no way of knowing then, but in that instant he had contracted an illness he would spend years trying to cure, and bound his soul to a city he would spend years returning to and escaping from. That first jump and the disease that came with it—the loss, too—was just the beginning of that night, but in many ways, it was the beginning of the rest of his life as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

[planet: none]  +   [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

The crystal-clear window of the cockpit made Asha feel like she was floating among the stars without so much as a space suit to protect her. She marveled at the sight spread out before her, the vastness of it all. She had always known that space was filled with billions of stars and planets and galaxies, but she had never fully appreciated that fact before now. Never appreciated the meaning of infinite. Never even scratched the surface.

It occurred to her uncomfortably, that she was a million times more sheltered than she would have liked to admit.

If she strained her ears she could hear soft, rhythmic breathing over the low hum of the ship’s engines. Obi must have fallen asleep. She sighed, and grimaced slightly, remembering their first proper conversation, as unfortunate as it was. Her cheeks flushed. Had she really threatened to tear him limb from limb? So much for first impressions. Chewing her lip, she wondered if she should apologise, then shrugged. He could think whatever he wished to think about her, she had simply reacted—entirely appropriately—to being groped by a total stranger. She had nothing to apologise for.

Except, maybe she did. Asha’s thoughts turned reluctantly to her mother. Checking her watch, she realized with a sinking sense of dread that she would have woken up by now. Anila Dhaka would be mourning the loss of her daughter for the second time.

If Asha wasn’t so utterly convinced she was doing the right thing, she would have felt absolutely terrible. And she did. Just not, perhaps, as much as would have been considered normal.

She was compartmentalizing her grief. It was an unhealthy habit she supposed had developed as a result of being rejected from everything she had ever wanted her whole life. It was also undeniably a byproduct of how she had been treated.

She knew how this story went; she knew how she would bundle up the sadness and pain and shove it into the derelict corner of her mind designated to _dealing with things later_. She also knew that one day that place would be full to bursting. That one day the dam holding back the tsunami of emotions would break, and repressed memories and feelings would flood her mind like a river bursting its banks. She knew she would never be ready for that day when it came, but come it would. She just hoped, hoped with all her heart, that by that time no one was depending on her _but her_ and she could break softly and quietly. Privately unraveling like a spool of thread until nothing remained.

That was what she hoped.

What she knew was this: she had never done anything softly or quietly in all her years of life. She knew that when that dam inevitably burst, it would explode in a blast so violent and so cruel that no one close to her could possibly emerge unscathed.

But that day would not be today, and so she turned her attention to the joystick in front of her, allowing herself a small smile, triumphant and victorious. She was flying the ship of her wildest dreams. It was true that she was flying it illegally on an unchartered, unapproved, unsanctioned course, but she was _flying it._ She sunk back into her seat, grinning now. Then, with a giggle, she put her grimy boots on the dashboard. Sand crumbled off the sole and scattered over the sleek paneling. Clapping a hand over her mouth she began to laugh in earnest. Maybe it was the shock wearing off, maybe she was coming down from the adrenaline high. Maybe the sight of her filthy combat boots resting comfortably on the pristine dashboard of government property set her off. Whatever it was, she found herself incapable of holding back the laughter. And, as her cheeks and ribs started to ache, she found she didn’t want to.

“Uh, are you… okay?”

Asha nearly choked. Her laughter turned into a hacking cough, and she blushed. Hard. Gasping for air, she whipped her feet off the dash and turned to face the door that connected the small room to the rest of the ship.

Obi’s head was poking around the corner. He looked worried and vaguely confused.

“No!” she said quickly. “I mean, yes! Yes, I’m fine.” She gulped, “Are, uh, are you okay?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking at her like she had suddenly grown a third eye. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He walked into the room and looked out of the window. “That view…”

Asha nodded vigorously. “It’s beautiful.”

Obi turned to face her. “So, I was thinking you and I should talk. Get everything out in the open.”

Asha nodded, slowly this time, “I was thinking the same thing.”

She pressed a few buttons on the panel to her left and an artificial voice rang out over the speakers.

“Engaging Autopilot Mode,” it said. A brief pause, then, “Autopilot Mode Engaged.”

Obi ducked through the hatchway into the main body of the ship and sat on the floor. Asha followed him, realizing he had taken off his coat. Underneath he was wearing washed out dark green trousers, and a worn, yellow t-shirt with faded red words on it. They were in an old Earthen language she vaguely recognized—English. It was still spoken on Gahraan between humans, out of earshot of the guards, and there were pirated copies of old Earthern movies available if you knew what to search, but she had never actually seen it written down. She racked her brains, trying to translate it, but to no avail. Pursing her lips in frustration, she sat down.

“Is something wrong?” asked Obi.

“No, no I’m fine,” Asha replied. “It’s just, your shirt, I…” she trailed off. She hadn’t thought to be embarrassed by her lack of knowledge until she felt herself flush.

Obi laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “Oh yeah, it’s dumb, I know. Kind of funny though, right?”

She felt her face redden.

“I can’t read it,” she blurted out.

“Oh! I totally forgot it was written in English,” he grinned. “It’s a joke! It says _Gravity – it’s the law!”_

Asha nodded slowly. “Right.” 

“You know, like the laws of physics?”

“Yes…”

“But it’s _funny_ because—you know what never mind.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

 “Where did you get it from?” Asha asked.

Obi went very still then. She hadn’t realized how much he’d been moving before. How he’d been in constant, graceful motion—flexing his fingers, smoothing out his trousers, pulling stray threads from his fraying shirt—until he wasn’t.

“Earth. London. A few millennia or so ago.”

“Oh,” Asha blinked. “So, you really are a time-traveler, then.”

“Most people would probably take a little more convincing,” he said, the beginnings of a smile on his face, “but, essentially, yes.” He smiled a little wider, “Yes I am. Although the official title is ‘Guide’.”

Asha nodded slowly. She didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but the facts were kind of indisputable: the old clothes, the dead language, the way he had known things about her that he shouldn’t have— _couldn’t have_ —known. The outside world was proving to be far stranger than she could possibly have anticipated.  “Is that how you can speak English?” she asked.  “And why ‘Guide’?”

“Ah,” Obi replied, “yes to the first question. I spent the best part of my childhood in London, England.” He wrinkled his nose slightly as he thought about the second question. Eventually he said, “Regarding the second question, I’m not entirely sure, but I have a theory?”

Asha gestured for him to go on. She may as well learn everything she could about him before he realized there was such a thing as oversharing.

“Well, all I have to go on is a page from a book that I found in my pocket,” he shook his head. “In the footnotes of that page there’s a very brief explanation. I’ll read it to you.” He rummaged around in an inside pocket, producing a yellowing piece of paper. Clearing his throat, he began to read, “‘ _The colloquial usage of ‘Guide’ was first used by young recruits of the Order, unable to pronounce the traditional name of Arἳcoaryuἠ. The term derived from the most credible theory to date on how the Arἳcoaryuἠ are able to gather the energy to jump such vast distances and over the span of so many years. This theory states that a ‘Guide’ harnesses the sentimental value of an object and utilizes that powerful energy to return or ‘guide’ the object to its proper time and place; the time and place where it was valued most by a sentient lifeform.’_ ”

Asha pursed her lips, frowning. “That—that makes no sense,” she said, because it didn’t.  

“I mean, it _does_ …” Obi replied.

Asha thought through what he had said. “So, you can just pick up any object that someone owned, and then— _just by touching it_ —you can alter, I don’t know, matter itself or—or the fabric of the universe, or _physics,_ as we know it, anyway—and, and travel through time and space?” She narrowed her eyes. “There are _so_ many ways in which that just doesn’t work.”

Obi looked vaguely affronted. Well, she thought, it wasn’t her fault she was right. Asha continued, “And even if it somehow was possible, I… What if more than one person owned something? What then? And how do you ever touch anything without being pulled into another time? And _since when_ was ‘sentimental energy’ even a credible, convertible or viable energy source? What if—”

“Just stop. Stop, stop, stop.”

Asha felt her cheeks redden, “If you didn’t want me to ask—"  

“Oh, no! No, it’s fine, ask away. It’s just that, well, I’m not even sure I know the answers to some of those questions. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just sort of hope that things work out, and usually they do?” He smiled, “Sorry, that’s such a lie, I have terrible luck.”

Asha smiled tightly. He was so open. _How?_ They barely knew each other, or at least they hadn’t until he’d decided to spill his whole life story to someone he didn’t even know. “One question at a time?” she offered.

“That would be most appreciated.”

She considered for a moment. “Alright. If, _hypothetically_ , you were a Guide, how would you choose which objects you can use to travel?”

“Ah! I can answer that,” he smiled. “So, I can only use objects which were _really_ valued by someone at some point. There has to be enough sentimental energy to power a jump. Your gun, for example. How did you feel about it?”

A pang of loss went through Asha’s chest. It was the first thing she had ever built from scratch that had actually worked the way she wanted it to. She had been so proud. It made her feel like maybe the things she wanted weren’t so unattainable after all, not if she could make them. “It meant a lot to me.”

Obi smiled wistfully. “Exactly. You were invested in it, there was a very strong emotional attachment. It was directly connected to your dreams, your aspirations, your hopes and fears. It was drenched in sentimental value, and therefore, sentimental energy.”

“Right…”

Obi grinned.

“But what if all of this hadn’t happened?” Asha continued. “What if I had grown up, and given it to my daughter? And she loved it for an entirely different reason, but she still loved it and was emotionally attached to it? What then? Who would it, you know,” she gestured vaguely, “ _guide_ you to?”

“Ah,” Obi said, “Well, that’s the fun part, I guess.”

She frowned.

“I get to choose,” he said simply. “I sort of get a feeling for all the different people who have owned something, and how they felt about it, and where and when they lived, and then,” he shrugged. “I just choose.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You must have seen many different places.” Asha felt her heart ache. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might be like to go anywhere you wanted just because you _could._

“There is a bit of a catch,” Obi said. “For me, anyway.”

“A catch?”

“This sounds really morbid, but,” he breathed out. “I’m very sick. I’m probably not going to live for much longer.”

Asha’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean?”

“I have this virus, uh—don’t worry! It’s not contagious, it only affects Guides. But every time I jump through time, I risk losing a piece of my body.” He pointed to his eyebrow, and the half that was missing. “It’s not usually that serious. But it can be.” He looked at her gravely. “If I show you something a bit weird, do you promise not to freak out?”

Asha looked at him, eyes wide, “That depends… what are you—okay.”

He was unwrapping the bandages on his left arm. She saw that his fingers were shaking slightly. The wrapping fell away. Metal glinted, plasma light shining faintly through his joints, and…

“That is a prosthetic arm,” Asha said, awed. “That’s a feat of biomechatronic engineering. It’s not weird, it’s _science_.”

“Thanks?”

Asha shrugged.

“If you’re sick,” she said, “why did you choose to come to me? To the sixty-first century, I mean. Shouldn’t you be in a hospital? Or at least, with your family?”

Obi shrugged again. “That’s easy,” he ticked off his answers on his fingers, “One; there’s no cure, two; don’t have one of those anymore.”

“Sorry,” she said, and meant it. “I didn’t even think about that.” They were both quiet.

“Is there really no cure?”

“There’s… no cure that I could get at a hospital.”

Asha nodded slowly. “Let me guess. That’s why you need to get to A’lkari. Thracin has the cure. You’ll die if you don’t get there, because you’ll become too sick.”

Obi nodded. Asha felt for him. He seemed so happy-go-lucky and carefree from what she had seen, which admittedly, wasn’t much. He had displayed a quiet ferocity when he had first told where he needed to get to, but ever since then he had been warm, friendly. He had dragged her onto the ship and away from the danger, dressed her wounds and told her the truth for no reason other than because _it was the right thing to do_. She admired him. Liked him, even. And he was going to die. But how could she trust him if she didn’t even know him? Was she just supposed to believe him?

 _You already do_ , whispered her subconscious. And she realized it was true. Somewhere between his incredibly flawed logic, and her skepticism, and not to _mention_ against her better judgement she had simply believed him.

 “Alright,” he said, interrupting her train of thought. “My turn!”

“Go for your life.”

Obi’s smile faltered. “You’re very, serious, aren’t you? I just—I can’t for the life of me tell whether that was sarcasm or if you were genuinely telling me to go ahead.”

Asha looked at him in confusion, “Why would I be sarcastic?” she asked slowly. “It’s only fair that I answer some of your questions If you’ve answered so many of mine.”

She had no intention of answering any of his questions. Not with the whole truth, anyway. She just wasn’t like that. Didn’t think she could be. Emotions, feelings, secrets—they were the only things she had ever had to lose, she couldn’t go around handing them out to just anyone. Asha was guarded because emotional autonomy was the only kind of autonomy she’d ever had. Secrecy was its own kind of rebellion.

“Right, yeah. Yeah okay.”

Asha frowned. “You sound unconvinced.”

“Could you maybe, ah, I don’t know, smile?” he winced.  “Sorry, that sounds strange, I’m just,” his voice cracked slightly, “I’m very intimidated by you?”

Asha didn’t know what to say to that.

“Maybe if you just _smiled_ —"

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

“Wha—Okay, no, that’s totally fine, it was a dumb thing to say…” he trailed off. “You were joking, weren’t you?”

Now it was her turn to grin.

“Well, well, well. Who would have guessed?” He smiled, his eyes crinkling a bit at the corners. “I think we’ve come pretty far if we’ve moved beyond threatening each other with grievous bodily harm to joking around, and, god forbid, _sarcasm_.”

Asha closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t remind me.”

Obi laughed. Then he smiled mischievously before frowning and glaring at her intensely. “If you come near me again,” he rasped, jabbing his finger in her face, “I will claw out your throat with my bare hands, I will tear you _limb from limb_! I will _eviscerate_ you and then—"

“Stop!” Asha gasped, tears filling her eyes, half from laughter and half from sheer embarrassment.

“I can’t believe you actually said that,” Obi laughed.

“I can! You were _molesting_ me.” Asha rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, too. She wanted to trust him, _goddamnit_. She just didn’t know how. Obi lent his head back against the wall of the ship and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“So, why do _you_ need to get to the Consortium stronghold? So badly you would steal government property?” he asked, sounding genuinely intrigued.

She could tell him. She could tell him everything. How nice it would be, she thought, to have someone to tell everything to. To have someone you trusted with all your secrets.

 _They needn’t_ be _secrets._

“I need to save my sister,” Asha replied simply. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was _true_. _One step at a time_ , she thought. Mirroring his action, she lent her head back against the wall. “She’ll be enslaved forever if I don’t get to her in time.”

“Oh,” said Obi. “I’m sorry.” He looked a little awkward, as if he didn’t quite know what to say. “You must care for her greatly, then. If you’re willing to risk your life for her.”

“She’s my sister.” Asha said. “It’s the right thing to do.” It was a non-answer, but it was something, at least.

Obi nodded thoughtfully, “I suppose it is.” He was quiet for a moment, and then, “I suppose you must miss her, then?”

Asha felt her cheeks heat up. Just say it. _Say it, say it, say—_ “I’ve never actually met her.”

He blinked. “What?”

He didn’t need to know everything, but if they were going to work together, she should at least tell him a part of the truth. “I was born after she was taken away. I don’t even know what she looks like.” She sighed, “I didn’t even know she existed until yesterday.” She ran her hands over her cornrows. _Yesterday_. It felt like lifetimes had passed since then.

“Tell me if I’m being nosy but, ah, how is that possible?”

“My mother,” she said, “lied to me, for a very long time. My whole life, in fact.”

“Well my father never lied to me,” said Obi, “I think maybe it would have been better if he had. He did leave me, though. I was eight.”

Asha smiled ruefully. “We make quite the pair, don’t we?”

Obi grinned back. “I don’t think either of our parents were bad people,” he said. “I don’t think my father would have left me unless he thought he was keeping me safe. Your mother would have had her reasons for lying,” he said. He sounded sad. “She was probably protecting you from something. The truth can be a dangerous thing. Especially to someone who isn’t ready to hear it.”

Asha nodded slowly.

“I think you’re doing the right thing, if it’s any consolation.” Obi said. “I’ve never had a sibling, but I think if I did, and I found myself alone, like your sister, I’d be counting on them to come and save me. Maybe she’s counting on something, too.” He winked. “She just doesn’t know it’s _you_ yet.”

His words put Asha more at ease than she had been in a while. It was one thing to justify your actions to yourself, and a completely different thing to justify them to someone else and then to have them agree with you. It felt good.

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it. 

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Advice like that doesn’t come for free, though. I fully expect some sage words from you next time I’m feeling inconsolable.” He grinned.

“Hey, Obi?”

“Yeah?” His smile didn’t falter.

Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet, “can we make a pact?”

“Depends on the pact.”

“I promise to get you to A’lkari in on piece if you do the same for me. That way we’re both protected. We can work together, pool all our resources, knowledge, that kind of thing. We could do it.” She looked at him. “I really think we could. What do you say?”

His hand was calloused and rough where it grasped her forearm. She couldn’t imagine her hand was any smoother. They shook.

“To A’lkari.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

[planet: none]  +   [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

The shrill sound of a klaxon pierced the still air. Asha jumped to her feet from where she had been dozing in the pilot’s seat.

“What the hell was that?” Obi asked, his voice low.

Adrenaline shot through Asha’s body as she slipped through the hatchway to the cockpit, her fleet sliding over the too-polished floor.

“Hold on,” she muttered, desperately scanning the control panel for a tell-tale red light, or rapidly decreasing pressure gauge. Her fingers flew over buttons and levers as she tried to diagnose the problem. Everything seemed to be in order, but still the klaxon screeched, high and keening, grating on her frazzled nerves, driving her towards panic. Then the sound changed slightly, flattening to become a series of unending beeps.

Asha knew that sound.

“Well that’s not ominous at all,” Obi whispered. “I take it from the way your face sort of drained of blood, that wasn’t what quite you were going for?”

She didn’t bother to reply.

 _Please no. No, no, no, no, no._ Asha squeezed her eyes shut.

The alarm shut off without warning, and the flat, even voice of an AI replaced it.

“Unidentified craft,” it intoned.

Asha’s heart jumped into her mouth.

“Please identify yourself, and ready the relevant documents for inspection.”

Her stomach dropped. Whipping her head around, she turned to face Obi with an almost feral look on her face.

“It’s the government.” She said, her voice a strangled whisper. “It’s a Consortium ship. _Oh, my stars_.” Her throat was closing up. “How the hell did our sensors miss this?” she whispered, outraged.  “It’s not even showing up on the radar…” her voice trailed off.

“I’m so stupid.”

Obi blinked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“This particular craft was never supposed to be actually flown in a commercial capacity,” she explained. “It was donated to the school by the government because it was malfunctioning, or missing parts, or somehow compromised. I only knew it was safe enough to fly because I overheard some engineering students saying that their final project was to carry out a repair and upgrade job on the whole thing.” Her voice rose as the panic began to set in. “The night I broke in was the night of their deadline. _I fixed all their mistakes_. Who can call themselves an engineer and leave a job half done?” she shrieked.

“Exhausted students who ran out of energy patches and adrenaline stickers four hours too early?” offered Obi.

Asha glared at him. “They wouldn’t have left if the systems hadn’t been completely updated, right?”

Her voice broke slightly on the last word. She was asking more out of desperation than anything else.

“Right?”

Obi worried his bottom lip between his teeth, looking lost.

“They must’ve forgotten to install the latest radar system, or maybe the system update failed…” she continued in a more subdued voice. “Either that or the Consortium has ramped up military funding enough to allow them to develop a completely unprecedented cloaking system.”

She slumped against the nearest wall. This was her own fault. What were they supposed to do when the government officials boarded their stolen ship and demanded an explanation for their uncharted, unapproved course? What would they say when they demanded to see documents that didn’t exist? She hadn’t even thought about getting fakes.

“Obi, if we can’t give them the correct identification number they’ll board the ship.”

“We could get lucky? Maybe they’ll decide not to bother us and we’ll just—”

“Don’t be stupid, of course they’ll board us. It’s _protocol_.”

Abruptly, a shadow fell across their faces, blotting out the light from the stars around them.

Looking up and out of the window, Asha steeled herself for the inevitable sight of a two-man government issue patrol ship painted in the formidable black and white of the Consortium. She had seen them before; the craft were small and maneuverable with heavy thrusters on each side for maximum speed. These features, along with the sharp nose of the craft and the wings like knives, allowed them to be extremely streamlined and adept at chasing criminals through asteroid fields or the debris of dead, broken planets where illegal settlements and shady black markets were inclined to spring up.

What she really saw was far, far worse.

The hull of what was probably the biggest ship she had ever seen was slowly crawling in to view. It was, as she predicted, painted black and slicked with blinding white stripes of the Consortium. Rumor had it that the Consortium techs had engineered a paint that reflected less than 0.0001% of all light that hit it. The effect was striking, to say the least, and always reminded Asha uncomfortably of a black hole. She supposed it was rather fitting. The ships took in all visible light and gave none of it back—just like the Consortium did with everything else.

The ship was getting closer, dwarfing their fighter craft with its sheer magnitude and size. There was only one reason a ship this immense would be cruising free space.

“Why is a _cargo ship_ asking us for identification? Why do they care?” asked Obi, incredulous.

The left side of the window in front of Asha crackled black. She jumped, as pixels streamed from a groove in the dashboard. They swirled upwards, forming a slightly transparent holographic screen that glowed with a soft, blue luminescence. A message was displayed on it in angry red letters.

“What do they mean, _prepare to be boarded_?” croaked Obi.

With a groan, the entire ship lurched sideways, the interior filling with a sickly purple light. The gravity shut off without a sound, and suddenly they were weightless. Asha’s tangled, curly hair floated around her face like seaweed. Obi reached out a hand and snatched up his coat from where it had begun to float off the floor of the ship, random objects starting to drift out of the pockets.

Asha was finding it harder and harder to breathe. The horribly bright purple light and the subsequent loss of gravity could mean only one thing.

“They’ve caught us in their tractor beam,” she said. Her heart was thudding a frantic rhythm in her chest. “They’re going to beam us up to the ship.”

“What! Why?” asked Obi.

Asha shook her head, deep grooves carved into her forehead with worry, shoulders slumping under the weight of their situation. She took a deep breath. “They must know this ship is stolen. I thought—” she took a deep breath, “I knew it was highly possible that there was a chance the aviation school back on Gahraan would have reported it missing, but we’re so far away from there now… surely it’s out of the jurisdiction of the local law?”

“That ship doesn’t look particularly local, Asha,” Obi said.

“I know. It doesn’t make any sense,” she replied. “It looks,” she swallowed. “You know how before you said that it looked like a cargo ship?”

Obi nodded.

“Well, I think it is. Except I’m fairly certain it doesn’t carry conventional cargo.” She grimaced. “Do you see those symbols on the starboard side? I’ve read about them. The first one means whatever it’s carrying is organic, i.e. carbon-based life. That could be plants or livestock.” She squinted, “I don’t know what the next symbol means. It kind of looks like the symbol for danger or caution, but see how it’s linked to the third symbol? That’s the symbol they put on AI’s who can think for themselves and retain personalities. It’s the symbol for sentient life. Combine ‘danger’ and ‘sentience’ and you get…” her voice trailed off. 

“I think,” she paused for just a moment before visibly steeling herself for what was to come, her mouth set into a grim line, “I think it’s cargo is _criminals_. It’s a prison ship.”

“You can’t be s—”

“Obi, we’re being arrested.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

[planet: none]  +   [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

Obi had been in his fair share of handcuffs, but the Consortium issue ones he currently found himself in were by far the worst.

“I swear they gave me cuffs two sizes too small on purpose,” he muttered to Asha. “I mean it’s not like I hate to be tied up but, uh,” he grinned, “usually the surroundings are slightly more seductive.”

“ _Silence_ ,” hissed the sentry escorting them through the maze of a ship. The thing was covered head to toe in interlocking metal armour. Obi couldn’t be entirely sure, but he suspected it was a robot. He wanted to unlock all of the script it was capable of, but so far he had only gotten ‘Silence!’ and ‘SILENCE!’ which he was fairly certain was the same as the former, only with the volume dialed up significantly.

After they had been shackled together and forcefully removed from their stolen ship, Asha and Obi had been shoved onto a small transfer ship and transported to the main craft. It was like a fortress. They’d had to pass through four sets of doors, each of various thicknesses and alloys. Asha had been stonily silent throughout, but Obi could see her eyes darting from floor to ceiling, calculating angles of elevation and cataloguing security checkpoints and possible exits.

Obi watched her instead of thinking about their current situation.

It would be so easy for him to picture London, it’s ever changing skyline, the dirt and the dreams and the cobbles of the pavements and disappear from his handcuffs and go home. But he needed this cure, and he was strangely attached to the stubborn girl he now called friend. He would have to wait it out, it would seem. Surely, they would find a way to escape.

Another guard joined the first, appearing soundlessly by their side. Obi looked up and saw the corridor they were on was due to split in four in a few more feet. Glowing symbols floated above the doors. Obi didn’t recognise them, but Asha obviously did. Out of the corner of her mouth she whispered, “The species that mainly comprises the Consortium are called the Lithians. Their society only recognizes three genders. The closest translations of which, are; Nurturers, Life-Givers and Warriors. They’ll either decide we fit into one of those categories and separate us—highly unlikely—or, they’ll put us in with the other bipedal species. Which is highly more likely.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I read a lot.”

“You know, usually when someone says that, they mean they read _works of fiction_. Not the entire encyclopedia.”

“There’s no point reading something that is fundamentally a lie.”

“Okay, you officially need to _chill the f_ —”

“There will be silence or death!” screamed the robot, swinging the butt of its rifle directly into the base of Obi’s spine. Dull pain exploded into his lower back, forcing him to his knees. Exerting every ounce of his willpower in an effort not collapse entirely, Obi groaned.

Keeping her mouth firmly closed, Asha dared a look at him. He could see her eyes swiftly checking for blood or a limp—any sign that he was favoring one leg over the other and might be seriously injured.

Flashing her a weak smile, he almost gave her a thumbs-up, then realized she probably had no clue what that meant. He made a fist instead—the nearly universal sign for _strength in hardship,_ it had risen to popularity during the Great War as a way most species were able to rebel against the Consortium without endangering their lives or the lives of those around them. A closed fist said _, I will survive—_ he opened his fist and offered his palm to her; _and so will you._ The exchange took no longer than a second, but Asha understood. Her eyes widening fractionally, before she nodded brusquely and turned her face forward, allowing herself to be led onwards.

He stood up. Falling into step behind her, Obi looked again at the glowing symbols. _Nurturers, Life-Givers and Warriors._ He couldn’t imagine being assigned such specific parameters for what was essentially _existing_. He had always done what he wanted in every aspect of his life. Travelled anywhere and any _when_ he chose. Worn what he liked, read what he liked, ate what he liked. Dreamt what he liked.

Admittedly, he didn’t have many aspirations beyond _survive whatever comes next._ But at least he knew he could be multiple things in his life, _do_ multiple things. The thought of anyone besides his father telling him what to do, what to make of himself, was laughable. Obviously, this wasn’t the same for everyone.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, Obi realized, this glimmer of pity. Especially when felt for the species who had taken over an entire galaxy. The same species who had enslaved entire planets.

A sharp prod in the back of his neck jolted him out of his thoughts. _So not the time to get philosophical_.

The robot was shoving him towards a glass cylinder. It looked like a cryogenics unit. The doors hissed open, releasing a cloud of cold vapor. Asha stared at him wild eyed—she was mouthing something at him frantically, but he couldn’t make it out. His mind was going into hyperdrive. Surely, they couldn’t freeze them? How could that possibly be legal? Maybe they needed to keep them in stasis until they reached the actual prison facility—

“Calm down,” said a voice over the speakers. “No, they’re not CryoPods. No, unfortunately we’re not freezing you. And no, I’m not lying to make you feel better.”

Obi craned his neck around, trying to locate the source of the voice. It sounded female, and bored. To his left, he could see Asha doing the same. The voice sounded human, and human usually meant _ally_.

“Stop looking around, you’re not going to find me. I’m watching you through surveillance cameras. The pods are for decontamination. We can’t have you infecting all your new… inmate friends, with any disgusting Human diseases. Last thing we need is an epidemic. Step into the pods.”

Obi nearly laughed. Who the hell did she think she was? Under no circumstances would he be getting in that pod, and if she honestly believed—

The robot next to Asha jerked to life. Twisting her arms behind her back, it slammed her against the wall, jamming its rifle against her temple. Obi saw the whites of her eyes as they rolled back into her head. A trickle of blood crawled its way down her cheek.

Obi felt a cold metal hand wrap around his flesh and blood one. The robot behind him leant forward, speaking directly into his ear.

“Sorry about that.” The woman’s bored voice crackled out of the speakers on the robot’s otherwise featureless face. “Oh wait, no, I’m really not.” The robot tightened its grip, “You. In the pod, or your friend gets it.”

Obi recoiled.

“You’re an AI,” he said. “You _are_ the ship.” Obi had never encountered an Artificial Intelligence with such a vindictive personality. AI’s were regulated. Yes, they could make memories which would influence their personalities, but to be so emotionally complex as this…

 _Oh,_ he thought. _Not vindictive per se, just a product of its time_. He had forgotten for a moment that to be Human in the future was as good as a post-it on his back saying, ‘kick me, I probably deserve it’, or the burned-on brand of _thief_.

“Get in the pod, Human,” said the AI. 

 “I’ll get in the pod when you let my friend go,” he spat.

“Let me think about that for a second.” The robot restraining Asha cocked its head at him. “No.”

The voice reverted back to the speakers, clear and crisp and cold. The sentry jerked its gun into firing mode, the barrel glowing. “I’m bored now. Three, two—”

Obi ran towards the pod. Taking a deep breath, he threw himself inside. An icy chill enveloped him, numbing his skin, his mind. Sound became vibration, became nothing at all.

Déjà vu slammed into him with all the force of a tsunami. Recollection held him in a vice like grip. His throat burned, felt raw. Memories, he thought desperately, were terrible things to choke on.

He had lived this moment before. _The acrid smell of antiseptic fills his nose. His limbs feel leaden, as though the anesthetic is replacing blood and bone._

The foggy glass allowed him a limited view of outside, but he fought to keep his eyes open. He saw Asha shove her guard away, and wipe blood from the corner of her mouth. She spat at the feet of the robot before striding, face forward, chin held high, into the pod next to Obi’s.

The doors closed. Obi allowed his eyes to do the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End of Part 1

 


	2. part two

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

Once there lived a boy who could jump through time and step through space as easily as breathing. But he was found by the wrong people, and this young boy was stripped of his innocence and handed a slip of paper with a name on it and a vial of poison. That night he would cease to be a boy and instead shrug on the heavy mantle of _murderer_.

Once there lived a young man who could jump through time and step through space as easily as thinking. This power was great and sometimes terrifying, but the life he had lived without it had barely been a life at all. He traded one slip of paper for another (and another and another). Swapped the poison for a gun, for a garotte wire, for an archer’s bow, for a knife. The voices in his head and the blood on his hands sang in the quiet night. _Murderer, murderer, murderer._

Once there lived a mercenary who fell in love between one beat of his heart and the next. He was carrying a pistol that fired deadly lasers and a piece of paper on which the loveliest name he had ever read was written. He couldn’t pull the trigger. She became the light of his life as they ran through galaxy, away from those who would kill them if they knew. The stars were their stepping stones as they fled, borne along the rushing current of time.

Once there lived an ex-soldier who was a father and a lover and kind. Then disaster struck, and he was an ex-soldier and a father and no longer as kind as he had once been. 

Once there had been a city through which a river wound steadily to the sea. Through which princes and kings rode on horseback. A city across which a father and a son stumbled one silent night. The boy and his father appeared out of the shadows cast by the setting sun, materializing as surely as the moon at night; like they were supposed to be there, and yet no one could explain why.

Once there had been a father and a son of extraordinary ability who chose to hide in plain sight. The father—ex-soldier, ex-lover, ex-kind—was still running from those he had once served. But he had a child to raise, and nowhere to raise him, so he hid. A farmhouse with an apple tree in the garden on the outskirts of the same city through which the river ran.

Now there lives a boy who is ignorant of his father’s past, as his father was not around long enough to tell him. The boy knows not of the ghost that called his father to a distant planet on the evening of the boy’s eighth birthday. He could not begin to imagine the troubles that awaited his father there. The old enemies, amassed and intent on revenge. It would be inconceivable to him how his father evaded them all for years, drawing them out of the dark and rotted places where they lay in wait and leading them to the edge of a galaxy where life was yet to take root.

Once there lived a man who was once again a soldier, who marched upon his adversaries alone. He lured his demons to him and then, underneath the dazzling light of two moons, he destroyed them.

Once there had been a street where a young boy lay down to die. His soul was splitting, disintegrating. He had no one to help him bind it to something, until he did. The man who was also a soldier, and who was still, miraculously, a father, sacrificed the last gift the only woman he had ever loved had given him all those years ago, to save the only gift she had given him that truly _mattered_ , and then stepped sideways, vanishing.

 

***

 

Alarick Amadi had always despised royalty of any kind. He did not believe any one person should wield so much power over so many other people simply because they had been born into it. Perhaps this was because he had been born into absolutely nothing and harbored no small amount of resentment as a direct result of this. Someone had once called him a ‘self-made man’ but this was not true. Alarick had not had a hand in his own making; that had been someone else’s doing entirely.

He resented that, too.

The night was cool, a chill that rasped under doorways and whispered through the cracks in windows. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and walked faster. Scowling, he pulled a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, then remembered that neither had been invented yet and put both items back. A few streets and howling gusts later, he decided he did not care, and lit up. Leaning against a wall he inhaled, pulling the smoke into his lungs, appreciating the dull burn and nicotine calm. He allowed himself to admit that he was, in fact, exhausted. He’d been stuck in this primitive city for far too long. Someone had even tried to pick pocket him today. The audacity of it was astounding, really.

Thinking about why he was here, probably suffering from hypothermia and frostbite, and breathing in all kinds of poison from the factory generated smog that hung, oppressive, over London, he scowled. Alarick was proud of his scowl, the carefully cultivated thing that it was. His predicament—for want of a better word—all boiled down to one thing, essentially; his complete and utter inability to resist a pretty face. Although, he thought, to call his late wife ‘pretty’ was a gross injustice. Also, he had been in love. That had to count for something.

Now he had a son who he hadn’t seen for four years. A son who was sick with a legendary virus. A son whose soul fragment was proving very difficult to track down. A son who would likely never forgive him.

A horse drawn carriage thundered past, shattering the silence and jolting Alarick back into the here and now. Goddamn cobbled streets. So _noisy_.

Stubbing his cigarette out on the wall, he shoved the burnt-out filter into his pocket. These humans were destroying their planet well enough on their own, he wasn’t about to start contributing. Plus, littering was stupid.

Half an hour later, Alarick was standing in the same place he had stood four years prior. The last time he had seen his son was a night burned into his memories with crystal-clear clarity. It was as though the street before him was existing on two planes of reality. The reality where he stood, observing and silent as he so often was, was quiet and still. The street superimposed over that one was lit up with ghostly light. The sickly green glow of radiation shone on wet cobbles. Shadows, dark and jagged, had been thrown onto the walls by a body so contorted with pain it hadn’t looked human.

Alarick had been bleeding from multiple wounds. Four of his ribs were shattered beyond repair. He was seeping blood and magic and malice onto the cold, wet ground, having just fought the bloodiest battle of his life. Having just walked away with something he had thought he would never truly find; his freedom. That battle had been the culmination of years of toil. He hadn’t even been sure he would survive. Hadn’t even been sure he cared. A long while ago, he had decided that he would die on his feet with a weapon in each hand, or he would die a free man.

After all of his enemies—all those who had bound him to their will, who had forced him to kill and maim and ruin—had been bated and tricked, lured to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and destroyed, Alarick had found himself quite alone. Having used all his relics of times long past and places long gone to jump from planet to planet in his mad rounding up of his enemies, he had left himself stranded. Artifact-less.

Except, not quite.

The teeth remained. A worn leather cord around his neck, taut with the weight of an equally worn leather pouch. The pouch which contained his most valuable possessions. They were milky white and smaller than he remembered, glinting dully where they rested in his palm. He could feel their energy, that _otherness_ that leached the cold from his bones and replaced it with raw energy. As he clutched them in his palm, the urge to jump, to return them to their rightful place, became nearly unbearable. He was dizzy—intoxicated—with the purpose they granted him.

A world-weary, adventure-hungry smile carved its way across his face. Lifting his face to the sky, he inhaled, exhaled.

Vanished.

And appeared at the site of his son’s almost death. The teeth gleamed and were gone, returned to the time and place of their owner. The boy they had belonged to writhed and screamed. Alarick looked up just in time to see Obi’s left arm blink out of existence. He recoiled backwards, flinching as violently as if he’d been punched. This was a symptom of the Sickness.

“ _No_.” His whisper was hoarse and desperate.

This was all his fault. Ripping through the pockets of his coat as though possessed, he grasped desperately for his Book. He flipped through it, eyes racing, trying to find the page he had thought he would never, _never_ need. The page about the Sickness. It was a crime among Guides to deface what was practically their sacred text, but Alarick slashed the page from its binding with his knife, then drew a shallow cut down his own forearm. He circled the relevant passage in blood, purposefully transforming the page into an Artifact that would lead the user straight back to him, whenever and wherever he was. He folded up the page and threw it into the air. It flashed and disappeared, re-appearing—he hoped—in his son’s breast pocket. Obi let loose another blood-curdling scream.

Alarick knew what this was. Obi was entering the final stages of The Anchoring. A rite of passage among Guides, it signified that his body, and the magic that fueled it—that mysterious _other_ energy—was ready to make its first jump. The catch: that first jump could _not_ be allowed to happen. If a Guide jumped during The Anchoring without an Artifact to forge a path, they would be pulled in too many directions, and simply cease to exist.

 _Help me,_ he thought. _Help me please._

Alarick opened the leather pouch around his neck for the second time that night. A whirring, humming sound filled the air. A cool breeze brushed his cheek, and two amber eyes looked into his.

_I release you from my service with one final order. Go. Save him. Keep on saving him until the day arrives when he can save himself._

The mechanical insect latched onto the boy’s energy, the same energy that moved its own wings, that lit the fire behind its eyes, and set Alarick’s final order in motion.

Alarick grimaced. He couldn’t watch this. He didn’t feel sorry for his son. No. Pity would have been an insult. He had felt pain like this during his Anchoring. They all had.

The mechanical insect reached the boy on the ground and alighted on his chest. There was a beep and a flash.

Pulling his coat tighter to his chest, Alarick closed his eyes and reached through the centuries. As he grasped his own Anchoring place in his mind, as he held it in his memory, he felt a tear roll down one scarred and weathered cheek. Then, he stepped sideways, and was home.

***

The vividness of the memory stole the breath from his lungs and blurred his vision. Blinking the quiet night back into view, he shook his head.

Fixing his mistakes; that’s why he was here. _Let not the specters of our past dictate our actions in the present, nor our decisions in the future._ It was time to regain control. To wrestle it back from the specter who was haunting him. The specter who wore the same face as he had, four long years ago. He had a prince to locate and a soul to find.

God help anyone, he thought, who got in his way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty

[planet: error]  + [city: error]  +  [year: error]

 

 

 

A long time ago, in a land many worlds away from the one inhabited by humans, there lived a girl born to be a god. Her skin was black, her hair was black, her eyes were gilded gold. When she sang the people cried, and when she laughed they _wept_ because hope is a formidable thing.

She was to be the god of all things good.

A long time ago, in a land hidden by mists full of time, cloaked in the shadows of vengeful, bloody-tongued angels, there lived a boy born to be a god. His skin was white, his hair was whiter. His eyes were red as ruin. When he cried the people sang, because only a choir could express how it felt to see that ruination had a soul, and when he wept the people _laughed_ because, _he is corruption, malevolence and death incarnate. When will he learn that tears are redundant things, for him?_

He was to be the god of all things wicked.

This girl, this boy, these twins, grew side by side, the years squeezing in between them like a wedge, forcing them apart. The girl was raised on a pedestal, her arms painted gold, and lifted, suppliant to the sun.

The boy hew himself a pedestal of rock, but the people grabbed his shoulders and pushed, until the rock crumbled and he was forced farther still, down into the hungry earth.

A long time ago, in a land that boasted a river flowing with molten daydreams, there lived a boy who was doomed and a girl who was prophesized. As they grew older they also grew to realise that there wasn’t much difference between the two. For what is doom but fate in its darkest form? What is prophecy if not the potential for calamity put into words?

The memory of that ancient time when the twins of light and dark had walked among the people _as people_ soon faded out of common knowledge and then out of all knowledge all together. And the girl was benevolent and the boy was not, and the girl was patient and the boy was not, and the girl lay on her pedestal among the clouds and the boy sprawled on his throne of rough-hewn rock beneath the earth, and they were both gods and they were both unhappy.

It was when the boy realized that he was a _god_ and he was unhappy, that the trouble started. Fate exists for a reason, and he should never have tried to change his. _No power is limitless_ , his sister had once said. _There are wishes too terrible for even you. The wants of the heart can be darker than we realize, especially the wants of a heart as ruined as yours. I’m sorry, Iel. This is your destiny._

The boy who was also a god, ruled the caverns of the dead and depraved with one eye on his subjects and the other on the sky. He had never chosen to be wicked, and he wasn’t. He had never asked to be corruption, and he wasn’t. Not yet. But a label such as his was always going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy; live under the world for long enough and even the darkness learns to be afraid.

 _I don’t want this_ , he thought, struggling to remember what sunlight felt like.

 _I want what she has_ , he thought, and he stood.

 _I am a god_ , he thought, splitting the earth with a word, _and_ _I will rule._

His colourless fingers scrabbled at the earth, until he hauled himself back into the land of the living. Plants withered where he stepped, and shadows lengthened, darkening and growing eyes. A savage smile carved its way across his face.

 _I am a god,_ he thought, _and they will_ love _me._

High in the sky, on a pedestal of gold, his sister saw it all. She did not have to guess at his plans to know what he was doing. As soon as he had risen into her domain his intentions became nearly tangible to her.

She screamed.

Her brother heard her anguish and his smile grew. He began to write blazing hieroglyphs in the air with his hand. Black, jagged shapes that sought the places where the fabric between the worlds was thinnest and exploited them. _A museum. A small tear made by an unwilling exit, and a warm energy of the kind he had never felt._ Before long, he had opened a portal to a place where the people would build him a pedestal of his own and they would fear him and they would love him and they _would_ worship him. A place where he could be the god of all things good and wholesome. Things like terror and torture and pain and sacrifice.

His sister screamed again, and there she was. Right beside him, closer than they’d been in millennia, perhaps closer than they’d ever be again. She grabbed him. Attempting to bind her will to his, to make him _see_ , to make him understand that goodness wasn’t in his nature—not anymore—just like it wasn’t in hers, and _he didn’t want what she had because_ —

But her brother stepped through the portal, and she was pulled after him, because binding your will to someone else’s is as much a balancing act as an exchange of power, and he wanted to leave so badly—

And then her spell was unravelling, and she could no longer feel her brother, and she was praying to all the gods that came before her to save her so that she could save her twin from himself. She fell out of the in between place between dimensions and crashed a crater into a palace made of mirrors and was still.

And then his spell was drawing to a close, and he was stepping through a place where the wall between worlds was gossamer thin, and then he was breaking through, and then he _was_ through…

 

and it was raining.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-One

[planet: Earth]  + [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

Being the almost-ruler of a country at war had begun to take its toll. George felt tired all the way to his bones. He hadn’t been sleeping. Hadn’t been eating properly. Hadn’t had the time.

Running his hand through his hair, he sighed and closed his eyes. Shapes drifted across the inky black of his closed eyelids. Soft, ember coloured orange. Rosy golds. Deep, dark blues reminiscent of an interstellar cloud he had once glimpsed through someone else’s eyes.

He sunk to the floor, slowly sliding down the wall until he was collapsed on the cool tiles. How was it possible, or _fair_ , that he had seen things he had no right to see? He had gazed upon moons with rings of burning ice and frozen fire, stared into the crater of a planet and seen a city. He had walked deserts that were light years away, had felt the soft whispering sand slip through his fingers like water.

A thousand times over, he had wished that he could forget. On trips into the city he would stare at the Thames’ glittering surface and think of the Lethe of Hades; the river that the newly dead stooped to drink from. The river that tugged their memories and experiences from their minds, lulling them into forgetfulness so they could offer up their blank souls for reincarnation. He opened his eyes, blinking slowly in the dim light.  Then he looked down at his hand.

The ring was simple. A band of gold inlaid with a small diamond. The sight of it repulsed him, but what repulsed him more was the fact that a far more extravagant one was being worn by a girl six-months his senior. Her name was Caroline. She lived in Braunschweig, Germany, and he’d been told— _assured_ —that she was lovely.

They were to be married in the spring.

He twisted the ring on his finger. It was highly unusual for him to be wearing one, but Caroline had apparently insisted on it. He didn’t care enough to refuse.

They had exchanged letters. Well, she had written to him and George’s clerk had written back.

His life was slowly being taken from his hands, but he supposed he had been a fool for thinking it had been his to control in the first place.

Again, he thought of the dead drinking from the river of forgetfulness and wondered what memories he would let go of first. He thought of Obi, of how they had saved each other’s lives; George dragging Obi off those steps and into the palace all those years ago, keeping his soul safe in a box with no lock. Obi had saved George every single day after that. His saving was in the little things. The secret smiles and easy laughter. The quiet, but firm promise he made every time they made eye contact. _I’m here for you, whether you like or not._

Suddenly he was sobbing. The kind of uncontrollable crying that appears out of nowhere. His grief slammed into him like a steam train, sudden and explosive. His shoulders shook. Tears spilled over his palms and through his fingers.

His ring was cold where it touched his cheek. With a shout, he pulled it off and flung it to the other side of the room. It bounced off the wall and skittered across the tiles to land on the floor at his feet.

 _Dear God, I wish this would stop. I wish I could go back to being fifteen. I wish I was still the boy who wore his heart on his sleeve. The boy who courageous and stupid and brave. I wish I was the same soul I once was. I wish I could forget. I wish all of this would_ stop _. I wish—_

I wish.

He didn’t wish to _die_ , he just didn’t want to live as himself anymore.

Wiping his face on his sleeve, he stood and turned to face himself in the mirror. His eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks blotchy, his hair disheveled.

Light from the candle glinted off the golden frame of a five-foot mirror. The tap dripped, icy and indistinct. A window creaked from another room, while George stared into his eyes and saw a man he did not recognize.

He blinked, and the box with soul fragment was in his hand.

He did not remember making the conscious decision to leave the bathroom, cross the hall, and open the cabinet where he kept the box, but he had, and now that it rested in his palm, heavy with promises and the knowledge of what was inside it, he realized he faced a decision.

He could keep the box. Bury it at the back of the cabinet amidst old clothes and faded papers and children’s toys. It would be out of sight, but nowhere near out of mind. If he kept it, he was actively holding on to the past, to the boy who had left him.

If he threw it away, who knew what would happen? _Who knew what would happen to Obi?_ He nearly asked himself if he cared, but George had never been able to lie to himself like Obi could.

His hand shook.

Fumbling, he placed the box on the bed and dug his hands into his pockets, rifling through until his fingers closed around a small glass bottle. He held it up to the light. A newly written label told him it was _laudanum_ , though he knew this already. A reddish-brown liquid filled the bottle. Apparently, it was enough for three doses. The royal physician had prescribed it for his migraines and nightmares and had told him he was welcome to as much as he needed. It also helped with the tremors he had developed lately.

Unscrewing the cap, he tried to convince himself that there was no shame in taking the drug. It soothed him. and helped him to feel as though there was hope for his situation. It also made him feel more… whole. Lately, he had felt as though he were being pulled in two different directions. It was completely illogical, and made little to no sense, but he felt almost at war with himself. The laudanum did much more than soothe him, though.

George knew what opium was, knew of the men and women who had fallen prey to its charms and now lolled, decaying and debauched on the filthy floors of the hazy, smoke-filled dens that infested the city. He knew that it was the drug that was responsible for the near euphoric state he was left in after a dose or two—or three—of the medicine.

He brought the bottle to his mouth and tipped the whole thing down his throat. Nearly gagging on the sharp, bitter taste, he pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, grimacing.

The effect was almost instantaneous. His head cleared, his limbs felt lighter. The quality of the light in the room changed a little. It was less harsh, less blinding.

He returned his attention to the box that now lay on his bed. His vision seemed clearer, and more lucid. He noticed that the colours of the box were now inversed. The box itself was silver, the lock was black. He blinked, and they switched back. Shaking his head, he reached out and grabbed the box with steady fingers. Perhaps it was the drug, perhaps he was just feeling particularly vulnerable in that moment, perhaps he just wanted to be comforted by something familiar… Whatever the cause, as soon as George’s hands closed around the box, he was falling. Sinking backwards into his own mind. A whirl of repressed memories and feelings and longings descended around him like a fog, until he was shrouded in the past.

Memories of happier times led him down the treacherous path towards sleep, the laudanum smoothing the sides of a journey usually so jagged he cut himself on its edges.

He didn’t hear the muffled thump of an intruder dropping into his room from the open window, nor could he have known that another man stood outside his door, about to break in. He slept on, oblivious, as the intruder went silently to the bed, and stole the box from in between his limp fingers. His wrist lolled, the pale inner skin of his arm nearly translucent in the moonlight slanting through the curtains. Blue veins tracing a delicate path to his now-empty palm.

The intruder tucked the box out of sight and adjusted their hood. A long, white braid fell over one shoulder, shining brightly in the dim light. With a sinuous, almost cat-like grace, they turned from the bed and the almost-king that lay there and stepped onto the window sill. Poised in a crouch, the stranger paused for a second, moving to press a cheek to the lock of the window.

A stream of murmurings began to fall from their lips. If persuasion had a sound, it would be this; brook water washing over pebbles worn smooth by time. The first tick of a newly made clock. Dreams and aspirations whispered to the lover you hold in your arms.

Coaxing, tempting. Nothing so crude as an outright demand would ever usher from those lips. Merely the suggestion of one, hinted on the exhale.

The thief then dropped gracefully out of the window and into the night.

The shutters remained open, a light breeze ruffling the curtains.

Then the window started to close. An echo of the intruder’s whispering voice filled the room. Clicking shut as if guided by an invisible hand, the locks also snapped closed.

The whispering faded into the background until all was suddenly silent and still.

Then Alarick Amadi walked through the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

[planet: Earth]  + [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

 

Alarick was seconds away from opening the door to the Prince’s chamber’s, and getting what he came for, when he felt it.

A rip.

A tear, messy and uneven, separating the tangled strands of the fabric that held worlds together. No, the fabric that held worlds _apart._

He felt it in his bones. The wrongness of it all. This was not the feeling of an unknown adventurer slipping through the cracks of the universe and into another dimension… this was the slashing of space and time by a callous, cold hand. An action of ignorance, (an atrocity such as this did not ask for repercussions so much as demand them), or an action of desperation, carried out in the full knowledge of such repercussions, uncaring of the possible punishment in the face of whatever had spurred them to commit such a crime in the first place.

The rip tore itself into a gaping hole and emptied a god onto the streets of London.

Alarick felt the dark, buzzing, clouded energy of _belief_ and _worship_ spill into the city like silt diffusing into clear water, followed quickly by the cleaner, darker energy of _death_. The boy was emitting magic like a beacon.

Boy. God.

_Which one was it?_

When Alarick had first felt his energy, he had been sure of the latter. Now the former seemed more appropriate.

God. Boy.

_What are you doing here?_

The boy-god had clearly been a deity of death, wherever he had come from. Its pure energy surrounded him like a shroud. Alarick could feel it from halfway across the city. Except. Except, it wasn’t exactly _pure_. The magic was tainted. Corrupted by something. Alarick couldn’t figure out what. He probed further, throwing out more intention, hoping to reel in the source of the decay, or at least an explanation—

He slammed into a wall of protective enchantment. The impact was so shocking that he was hurled back into his own mind, his senses turning to static.

A deathly pale, phantom hand curled around his spine, ripping through muscle and tendon, parting nerves and brushing synapses aside, wrapping skeletal fingers around his brain.

He yelled, gathering his strength, trying to summon enough willpower to expel the intruder. To separate his thoughts from the probing, obtrusive, violent hand now snatching at his defenses.

He _pushed_. Envisioning a sphere of protection with him on the inside and the god’s influence on the outside, he shoved outwards with his power, forcing the god out and away, growing his sphere until it encapsulated the entire room. He let his power sink into the walls and soak into the floorboards. This enchantment would last for years.

Alarick’s vision cleared slowly, the static of his vision clarifying and clearing, until the room was visible once more. He felt weak. It had been so long since anyone had brushed aside his defenses so easily—defenses he had believed were nigh on impenetrable.

His lock picks dangled from his fingers, forgotten. The remnants of magic in the room beyond the door room were electric. His fingertips felt fuzzy, his skin felt charged, somehow. Magic like this was rare. One did not simply happen upon it. Magic like this came about once every few centuries. It smelled like sage and wildflowers, tasted like stardust and licked along his skin like the tongue of a flame. This kind of magic— _archaios,_ it was called by the Order—heralded a new age. Once, Alarick had heard it called ‘tragedy-magic’, as it never boded well for anyone, but he thought that incorrect. Nothing about this felt like the potential for catharsis. The bright, sage smell did not bring to mind the fall of a hero, cast from the favour of some god. The flames on his skin did not burn with righteous sadness or the inevitability of prophecy. It simply felt like ruination. Dreadful and powerful. It was not of this world, that much he was certain of.

London, he thought, as he lent against the wall, was proving to be far more difficult than initially predicted.

He opened the door just in time to see the window close. Must have been opened by a draught.

“Bit shoddy for a palace to have draughty windows,” he muttered. Shrugging, he stepped toward the sleeping prince, and reached out with his mind. He threw out words like ‘soul’ and ‘bond’ and other, more ancient phrases that translated more accurately into feelings and sentiment than words in any one language. As they bounced back he was able to glean a little of what had happened.

He saw Obi, looking about fourteen years old, grey eyes solemn and earnest, a faint blush creeping up his neck as he told George to keep the box. As he told George he trusted him with his life, _so why not this?_

He felt George’s reverence as if it where his own, his stalwart determination to protect Obi’s soul with his life. Then, he felt the determination turn to a resignation of the fact that _he was never coming back, was he._ Turn to joy when _he’s returned for me!_ Turn to a newly nineteen-year-old’s bitter confusion and betrayal, because _I understand that you said no when I said take me with you, but why would you leave again without saying goodbye?_

Alarick felt all the anger and the rage and the desperation that George felt for Obi condensed into an emotional laser and fired with precision focus at the box.

The kid definitely had abandonment issues.

Turning towards the bed, he steeled himself in preparation of waking the prince. He would have to explain the now-increased urgency of the situation.

The prince, it seemed, was not in need of being woken by anyone other than himself. The boy was staring at him. He seemed half-asleep still, confusion written elegantly in the furrow of his brow, the groove by his mouth speaking of distrust. 

“Who in God’s name are you?” he slurred.

Alarick blinked. “I thought princes were supposed to observe the height of propriety, and not blaspheme.”

George scowled at him. Alarick continued, “That wasn’t very proprietus.”

“I’m fairly certain that ‘proprietus’ is not a word.”

“Of course, it is,” Alarick countered, then swiftly, “are you drunk?”

“No?”

Alarick snorted and walked towards George’s dresser.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” George said. “Who are you?”

Alarick opened a book, closed it. Started thumbing through a sheaf of paper, put it down. Picked up the bottle of laudanum and rolled his eyes. “Really?” he asked, brandishing the very empty bottle at George.

“It helps with my hands. They shake sometimes.” He shrugged, “and I have the occasional night terror.”

Alarick nodded knowingly. “Tricky things.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m not in the habit of answering questions the asker already knows the answer to.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do. Or else I wouldn’t be here.”

George stilled suddenly, the atmosphere in the room intensifying in seconds. His mouth fell open, as though he had seen a ghost.

“…Obi?”

“Obi! _What?_ No. Is that—please tell me you’re joking?”

George looked startled. “Oh! Sorry, I simply thought that perhaps you were him from… the future? I apologise, that sounds insane, but I—I don’t,” he pulled his shirt back up over his shoulder and got out of bed, blinking slowly. Toying with something by his bedframe, he said, “Well, if you’re not him, then who are you?”

Alarick scoffed _, if he hasn’t figured it out by now—_

A scraping sound echoed through the room, and suddenly George was only two feet away, and the cold, razor-sharp point of a sword was digging into Alarick’s neck.

“Alarick.” The boy’s eyes were remarkably lucid. Piercing, almost. It was incredibly unnerving.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Why are you here?” The tone of his voice had changed. It was cold, impersonal. No trace of inebriation lingered. _Very clever_.

“Thought I’d do some sightseeing, take a river cruise, maybe check up on my son—”

The sword dug in harder. Alarick felt a warm trickle of blood leak down his neck. _Alright,_ he thought, _this has gone far enough._

He snapped his fingers. The sword disappeared as Alarick sent it forward a couple of hundred years in time. George inhaled sharply, Alarick smiled, and then he said, “Don’t move.”

George grimaced, then threw a punch that landed squarely on the underside of Alarick’s jaw.

Dull, throbbing pain spread from where George’s fist had connected with his face. Alarick staggered backwards, shaking his head slightly. _Well, that was unexpected_.

The prince looked him in the eye. They held each other’s gazes, both unwilling to look away, to betray any sign of weakness—

“Oh good, _God_!” George exclaimed. “That was _so_ _painful_! How are you not unconscious? Or at least somewhat concussed?”

Alarick wiped the blood away from under his nose and smiled. “You kept your thumb inside your fist, didn’t you?”

“I think it may be broken.” The boy sounded half strangled.

“What kind of father doesn’t teach his son to box properly?”

“My father is the king.”

“I don’t see your point.”

George huffed, “You still haven’t answered my question.”

 _May as well be blunt_ , thought Alarick. “I’m here for the part of Obi’s soul that he left with you.”

George was silent for several moments. “How do you know about that?”

“How do I know? He’s my son. I know more about him than you think.”

The boy’s face flushed bright red. Alarick rolled his eyes.

“Whatever it is that’s going on between you two is none of my business. Also, I don’t really care.” It was true. After leaving Obi to fend for himself at such a young age, Alarick recognized that in doing so he had forfeited the right to an opinion on any of Obi’s actions.

“Oh. Right.”

“Yes. Right.” Well, this was uncomfortable. “Can I have the box?”

George glared at him.

Alarick raised an eyebrow.

“No.”

“What?” Alarick sighed. “Look, there’s been a change of plan. Also, the city is now in mortal danger, and giving me Obi’s soul fragment may be the only way to stop what is likely to become a very messy situation. Please, don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be, even though I’m sure he told you that you weren’t to give it to anyone, not even me, _blah blah_ if you love me _blah blah blah_ , it’s whatever now, okay? Give me the box.”

George’s face betrayed such deep, intense confusion, that it was all Alarick could do not to laugh. He’d forgotten how entertaining the cross-century language barrier could be.

“Terribly sorry,” George said slowly, “But I didn’t quite catch that. My fault, I’m sure. Anyway,” he said, swiftly moving on. “Obi told me not to give it to anyone, especially not you. And I’m fairly certain there hasn’t been a ‘change of plan’.” His fingers made mocking quotations in the air. He must have learned that from Obi, Alarick realized. He was over a hundred years too early to the trend. “I know all about Obi’s plans,” George said. His voice was even but his face betrayed him. _He’s… lying,_ Alarick realised. _He doesn’t know about the Sickness._ “He told me not to give the box to _anyone_ under _any_ circumstances. That includes you, I’m afraid.”

 _Ah_. Alarick hadn’t planned for this. When he had heard what Obi was planning he’d been devastated. To take the cure for the Sickness meant that Obi’s powers would be stripped from him. Alarick couldn’t fathom such a thing. But then again, he couldn’t fathom his gift being anything but a strength. He’d told his old acquaintance, Qala, that she had to stop Obi, that he couldn’t be allowed to go through with something so recklessly foolish. 

 _“He’s his own person, Alarick. And you don’t get a choice when it comes to him, not anymore.”_ Her words rang in his ears. Old guilt surfaced, and something must have shown in his face because,

“You really care for him, don’t you?” George asked. His eyes were narrowed critically, assessing Alarick’s every move. “He tried to tell himself that you had died, but I think he knew it wasn’t true. He thought you resented him. He thought that simply by existing he was keeping you from your power and your destiny and that one day the pull became too much and you just…” he waved his hand, “you just left.” Then he added, under his breath, “Like father like son, I suppose.”

Alarick was silent. Who _was_ this boy? How did he fit into this story with the rest of them? If Alarick blinked and pushed gently against the Prince’s mortal soul with his own power, he could see a vague outline of George’s future. Except it was… changing. Alarick pushed harder. No, not changing. It was stacked. He blinked again, pushed slightly harder.

There were two.

Suddenly Alarick was sitting underneath a sprawling tree, surrounded by people like him and learning his craft for the first time.

“Most sentients have one future,” intoned the teacher. “There are of course, philosophers who would disagree and say that a future is a mutable, protean thing, an ideology at best.”

A few in the class nodded, looking unsure.

“Naturally, they’re wrong. A sentient’s future is not malleable. It may be… influenced, yes, but it will always stay the same. Every decision is pre-destined, every distance travelled, pre-ordained.

The class was silent.

“This does not apply to you, and it does not apply to the _saraasik_. This world—this universe—it is a tapestry. Normal, time-blind sentients are the thread. They travel along linear paths, they overlap, and sometimes they tangle, they form the bulk and the base of the tapestry, but in the end, they lie straight, the tapestry is neat and all is as it should be. In order.” He splayed his hands, “Order is the architect.”

“Order is the architect.”  They murmured.

“Us, the _Arἳcoaryuἠ,_ or ‘Guides’ as you have so vulgarly coined, and the _saraasik_ are the exception. Order is our architect, of course, but we are not its subjects, we are its _agents_. The _saraasik_ —those with more than one possible future, very rare indeed—are certainly anomalous, but if they exist, then the architect must have a reason for their existence. And it is this: the _saraasik_ are a test, and they are a proof. Think: the sturdiest, most well-built house has no draughts or leaks or loose floorboards. But in time it will gain all of these things, and repairs must be made, but it is no longer up to the architect to do this. It is up to the inhabitants of the house. The adult inhabitants.”

The class blinked slowly at their teacher.

“Do any of you ingrates actually understand any of the glorious knowledge I am attempting to impart on you?”

Alarick rolled his eyes. “This universe is the house, Order is the architect…"

“Order is the architect.”

 “…and we are the inhabitants, the _adult_ inhabitants, and the time-blind sentients are the children in our care, which means the _saraasik_ are the leaks. They need to be repaired, or… or…”

“Go on.”

“…Or gotten rid of.”

“Exactly.”

“Then what are they proof of, Sentinel? You said they were a test _and_ a proof.”

His needle-sharp teeth glinted as he smiled, “Very good, someone who was paying attention. The _saraasik_ are proof that time exists within Order, as they only appear when we, the _Arἳcoaryuἠ_ , are involved. The house would not deteriorate if time did not march on as it does, and so time is what brings about the _saraasik_. But they are not an erosion, they are a mutation. A _saraasik_ is made not born, and this is why they have two futures.” He held up one long, quadruple jointed finger, “The first is the future they are born with. The second,” another finger rose to join the first, “is the future they are given through interaction with a Guide.”

The Sentinel smiled, lips pulled taught over his thin teeth.  

“Terrible things can happen to the world when someone walks around with two futures open to the them. Therefore, we surmise that either the door to the second future must be closed, or the _saraasik_ eliminated completely. The latter is drastic and only happens in severe circumstances as this is liable to affect others around the situation—potentially creating more _saraasik_. For obvious reasons, this cannot be allowed to happen.” He glared at all of them, as if they had already done the unforgivable. Alarick gulped. _“Saraasik_ are dangerous because they are one of the few temporal anomalies that have the potential to create the unspeakable; temporal chaos. Obviously, this is something nobody wants, as its repercussions are often nuclear and entirely unpleasant. We will cover this, and the common methods used to close a _saraasik_ ’s second future, next seminar. Your theory-based essays on the volatility of Artifacts are due next lesson, do not forget. You are dismissed.”

The students stood in silence and began to leave the room. Alarick remembered listening to their excited murmurs as they walked down the corridor. Remembered wishing that he could be a part of their comradery and friendship.

“Mr. Amadi, sir?” George said, jolting him out of his memories.

Alarick realized he had been silent for some minutes. The prince looked at him, frowning.

“Sorry, son,” Alarick said, “Remind me what was I saying?”

George blinked, his mouth falling slightly open in surprise. Then, he seemed to regain his composure, and waved his hand. “It is of no consequence, now. What we must concern ourselves with is the matter at hand. Or rather, _matters,_ plural. First of all, your presence here. I do not believe for a second that attaining the piece of Obi’s soul was your sole reason for visiting. And, secondly, the ‘mortal danger’ you mentioned. If the people of my country are at risk, I must know. It is my God-given duty to protect them.”

Alarick sighed.

In George’s first future Alarick had glimpsed a wastrel of a king. A sick and lumbering man who would run his country into a ditch full of debt and then expire, barely able to breathe for his weight, drugged to a stupor and intoxicated even as he lay dying. A king who would leave his country no better off when he died than it had been while he’d lived. Now when he looked, he saw a vague and shifting future superimposed over the first. He still saw a war and a marriage and addiction, but now there was love and adventure and sacrifice there too, all woven together with more than a bit of magic. He smiled. The only thing that could be responsible for this change in the disastrous reign of King George IV was Obi. Fifteen-year-old Obi, who had given the boy company and laughter and a kindred spirit, and eighteen-year-old Obi who had given him something more.

This healthy-looking, erudite and caring prince, was so different to the man that he had heard about hundreds of years in the future. This could mean only one thing… he was watching a _saraasik_ ’s soul become responsive to the possibility of a second future.

It was like nothing he had ever seen before.

 _Well_ , he thought, _if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em_.

“What would you say,” he asked, “if I told you that at this very moment, a monster with god-like abilities and an obsession with both worship and death was prowling the city, scouring it for people it deems worthy of a fate a hundred times worse than hell?”

George didn’t skip a beat, “I would say we need to find that monster and kill it.”

Alarick narrowed his eyes. “We?”

George nodded. “If we join forces to hunt this creature down we are more likely to succeed. I have access to any and all weapons we may require, as well as the power to issue a search warrant by royal decree. I am assuming you have abilities… outside the realm of what most would consider normal?”

“You would be correct in that assumption.”

George smiled, but his face quickly fell. “Anyway, I could use a distraction.”

“Oh?”

“From my _marriage_.”

“Hah! Good luck explaining that one to my son,” Alarick said.

He earned a punch in the arm and curse for that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

[planet: Earth]  +   [city: London]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

George was still in disbelief. First, Obi’s _father_ had shown up at his door, not only alive, but also asking for the one thing George simply couldn’t give, and then had proceeded to notify him of a malicious and terrifying monster that was apparently stalking the streets of his city looking for worship. It was a lot to take in, and so, naturally, George decided to take it in later, and squashed his surprise into the place he squashed all his other repressed feelings—needless to say it was a place that was getting very crowded, indeed. Why had he asked Alarick to let him help, again? It had seemed such an inspired decision five minutes ago.

Alarick chuckled. “Oh, to be young and betrothed. Let’s just hope the wedding night passes without a hitch, shall we?”

George felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. It wasn’t really _proper_ for him to discuss this with—

“Oh god, sorry,” Alarick said, squinting. “Forgot how prudish you Victorians are.”

George squinted, “Victorians?”

“Oh, wrong monarch, shouldn’t have said that. Forget about it kid, alright?”

George shook his head to clear it, wondering not for the first time why speech sounded so clumsy and lazy in the future. He sighed, “I am not a _prude_ ,” he said, whispering the last word, “I’m simply…” he gestured around for the right words. “You know that they _watch,”_ he said in a strangled whisper. “The consummation, I mean—It’s just, I do not—why would _anyone_ want to watch that?”

Alarick grimaced, “How distasteful. I’d forgotten they did that. I suppose it’s to make sure you, ah, actually go through with it.”

“Well, I am not sure I can!” George blurted out.

Alarick looked at him sadly.

“It isn’t that I’m nervous,” he continued, “although there is that, It’s only… I—I don’t think I _can_.” George looked at Alarick, imploring him to understand. _I’ve never felt anything for a woman,_ he was saying. _I never have. I don’t believe I ever will. The thought of being with anyone other than Obi almost repulses me and I’m—I know that this is wrong, that it goes against God and the Church and everything Right, but I’ve never felt_ more right _than I do when he’s with me_. _I don’t know how I can possibly consider telling you this, but_ _how could I ever consummate my marriage with Caroline in the face of all this?_

“I see,” Alarick said after a moment. “I see.”

George’s shoulders slumped. The relief he felt was nearly crippling.

“Come, sit,” Alarick said, motioning to the chairs by the window. George sat tentatively, and Alarick settled opposite him. The Amadi men were a strange breed, he thought. Inviting themselves into his life like it was what they were owed, never sparing a thought for the consequences. Or not appearing to, anyway. “You know, it could be the same with women,” Alarick started, but George shook his head.

“No.” He had tried to want them before this, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t who he was.

“Alright, alright, I hear you,” Alarick said. He was quiet for a moment, as if lost in thought. Then, he sighed as if it to say ‘ _oh, why the hell not?’._ Taking off his strange, fingerless gloves and laying them on his knee, he examined his hands. They were crosshatched with silvery scars, slashed over each other and under each other, a web of pain, of history. He had strong hands, and George liked him better for it. “You know,” Alarick continued “when I was younger I was alone. I did not know my parents, did not know my heritage or even my real name. I grew up in many places, but at this point in time I found myself on the streets, a thief or beggar, much like the ones you have in this city—poverty exists everywhere, you see—until one day, a man hit me around the back of my head and dragged me into a warehouse full of others, just like me. I would have been around seventeen-years-old. The man, and some others, rounded us all up, and put us on a ship, and took us to one of the outlying planets of the solar system, where they trained us to be soldiers. I was given a gun, I was given a crossbow, I was given poisons, and I was taught how to use them. They turned my body into a weapon, and even to this day, I am scared that the violence they wrote into my blood—into my heart—will never truly be gone. These hands can kill a man in a hundred different ways,” he sighed, “but they also raised a child.” He bared his palms in surrender, “I admit I did not do a very good job of that in the end, but I think he turned out well enough, don’t you?”

George smiled.

“The point I am trying to make, is that no matter the roles thrust upon us by others, the way we let those roles—and the expectations that come with them—shape us, is entirely our choice. You do not want to sleep with this girl—" George winced, “—but you have to.” Alarick finished. “The way you let it affect you, however, is entirely up to you.” He stood abruptly. “The choice is always yours. Remember that, it will serve you well.” He nodded, “And remember to be kind. Always remember that. I forgot, and it cost me dearly.”

“Thank you.” George said, and meant it. No one had ever spoken so frankly to him or been so honest without having cause to be. No one except Obi. This was different though, especially coming from someone old enough to be his father. It had more weight behind it, more gravitas. He felt like he’d been trusted with a very valuable secret.

“Well,” said Alarick gruffly, “I’ll be off. See you in a week or so, I expect.”

“A week?” said George, alarmed. “But the monster could have attacked half the city by then!”

“Nah,” Alarick said, unbothered. “After opening such a big and messy portal between worlds, he’ll need at least a week of rest and relaxation before he’ll be up to attacking anyone.”

“But surely we should hunt him down while he’s still weak?” George sputtered.

“No need,” Alarick replied. “Anyway, we’d be going in blind. I have some detective work I need to do, and you my lad, have a wedding to attend if I remember rightly.”

“I suppose so…”

“And where’s the fun in it? Striking while he’s down? I like a bit of challenge personally. So, if you don’t mind…” He tipped his hat, pulled on his gloves, and flashed George a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll be off. See you next time, your highness.” He bowed jauntily, and walked out the door, shutting it with a soft click as he went.

George flopped backwards onto his bed. The toll that the last few hours had taken on him were making themselves apparent in the weariness of his muscles and the tightness of the skin around his eyes and mouth. He had acquired a permanent crease between his eyebrows, and an almost permanent migraine, too. He looked towards his dresser, but the bottle of laudanam was as empty as it had been an hour ago. He would have to ask the physician for some more. This silence was nice, though. He rarely got any time for himself anymore, especially as his father’s condition deteriorated. His eyes found the laudanam again. _No._ Not… not yet. He bit his lip until he looked away, clenching his jaw so hard he broke the skin. The sharp tang of blood helped to ground him, to bring him back to the present. He was having a harder time with that lately… staying present. Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. It would only get harder from here. The bottle of laudanam was resting on a book, George realized belatedly. Virgil’s _Aeneid_. The story of Aeneas; hero, father, son, king. Tasked by the gods with the founding of an empire, whatever the personal cost. Heaving himself off the bed, he pulled the worn and faded copy out from under the empty bottle. It fell open in his hand. The pages were thick and aged, yellowing slightly. His eyes skimmed over the Latin that had been so painstakingly hard to learn and translate at first, until it no longer was, and he had found he never wanted to stop. A line was circled in black ink so faded it had turned a dull and muted purple.

_Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit._

His own hastily scrawled translation cramped the margin: _Perhaps it will be a joy one day, to remember even this._

Perhaps, he thought. _Perhaps_. There were certainly moments he looked back on with fondness now, that had been terrifying at the time of their occurrence. How he could smile when remembering the act of dragging a half-dead Obi through the doors of the palace, he had no idea. He supposed the few months of happiness the encounter had granted him were a good enough excuse. Thinking about that time was a luxury he rarely afforded himself. Happiness, he had come to realize, was addictive.

 

***

 

The first week that Obi stayed with George, he behaved more like a skittish animal than a boy. He didn’t touch anything, barely spoke apart from the terse conversation they had on waking, barely moved or breathed or ate. Now that George knew Obi, he knew how badly he had been shaken by the loss of his arm. For him to sit still for five minutes was a miracle… for him to remain so silent and unmoving for a week could only be attributed to debilitating shock and grief. The only times George saw the empty, hollow look leave his eyes was when he stared into the box where he had captured a part of his soul.

George had never seen anything like it. As Obi’s body had convulsed and contorted, back arching so sharply and violently that ribs cracked, George had seen magic for the first time. Obi’s eyes had flown open, blazing with a white light that consumed his pupils, his labored breaths turning to screams, and then to strangled pleas.

“My soul—take it! I need—The Anchoring, you have to trap it— _argh_!” His spine had arched again, cutting off his windpipe. Then the white light had left his eyes. George, gaping as he saw the lights race down Obi’s neck—as though the light was in his _blood_ —frantically searched for a container of some kind. _You have to trap it,_ he had said. _But how?_

It was when the light reached his heart and _pulsed_ , that George first formed the idea that he might be in over his head. The light pulsed again, and then separated from Obi’s body, passing through his clothes in an orb of brilliant white light. Obi’s chest had strained upward, upward, upward—

And then, like a marionette with his strings cut, he had slumped to the ground, the orb was suspended in mid-air. It shone like the sun. It was the most beautiful thing George had ever seen. He ran into the entrance hall of the palace and spotted a small box that held crushed lavender on a table. He tipped the crumbling petals out and sprinted back outside.

The orb was floating higher in the air, wisps of it snagging on the air and disintegrating.

“Q—Quickly,” Obi rasped. “You have to keep… keep it safe. You—” he broke off, groaning. “You have to promise me. P—Promise me you’ll keep it safe.” Then his eyes had fluttered fully shut, and he had fallen unconscious. The orb still hung in front of George, as though waiting, as though baiting him into action. He stepped closer and held out his hand with the now open box in it. The orb was nearly too bright to look at, but he brought the box towards it, and captured it inside. There were no flames, no holy fire. He had half expected to hear the voice of God Himself or watch as an angel descended from the heavens. But all was still, and all was quiet. He was alone with the boy who would become everything to him, who would become his light in the darkness, his godsent thing. He hadn’t known it then, of course, but he knew it now, and God, it made him happy, made him _smile._ Obi always did.

The days after that had been filled with empty silences, until, on the eighth day, Obi had spoken. His voice was rough, and hoarse, his throat still raw from the screaming.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

George had been startled. Had been jubilant, excited, terrified.

He had waited for this moment for over a week! He had dreaded this moment for over a week…

And yet, he didn’t have anything to say to what Obi had asked.

“I’m not entirely sure myself, I’m afraid.”

Obi stared at him blankly.

“You were in need of help,” George said, “I was in a position to offer it.” He shrugged, “Need there be anything more to it than that?”

Obi had put his head in his hands and sighed.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, of _course_ there is more to it than that. First of all,” he raised a hand—his only hand—ticking off the list on his fingers, “you owe me nothing. Nothing at all. I have never met you, or seen you, or interacted with you in any capacity whatsoever. You owe me nothing,” he repeated. “And yet, I owe you everything now, it would seem.” Rolling his eyes in disgust, he raised a second finger, “Secondly, not to state the absolutely, blindingly obvious, but you are fair-skinned, and I am… not. You are royalty. A prince, heir apparent to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. I am nothing and no one. An orphan. A _negro orphan_ , abandoned. I could be the son of slaves, for all you know. We are not equals in this city. We will _never_ be equals here in your lifetime. You shouldn’t have helped me. Not many would. It doesn’t—It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. You have so much more to lose by helping me…” he shook his head, slumping, as if all the fight was nearly gone from him. “You must be very stupid, Your Highness.”

George knew he should be affronted. Mildly offended, even, to be shown such ungraciousness, such ungratefulness by someone of such a lowly position.

_We will never be equals here._

“That is unimportant to me—”

“It is only unimportant because it has never affected you!” Obi burst out. “Sorry, that was rude. I simply meant that due to the position you have been afforded in life, you can never know, never truly understand, that it _is_ important, even if it shouldn’t be.”

That conversation had been one of many. George didn’t understand a lot of things, but Obi had been patient and kind when he had realized that George wanted nothing from him than friendship. There had been tense arguments and frustration and angry, angry words, but there had also been understanding and shame and so much guilt that Obi had forgiven George on the condition that he tried to help the people in his city, in his country, in his _empire_ , whose wrists were rubbed raw by the shackles that had been abolished but persisted, whose pride had been stripped away with the skin on their back under the lashes of whips that crippled and maimed and oppressed and oppressed and _oppressed_.

George had promised that he would, _of course he had_ , but little changed, and parliament was under no obligation to listen to the spoilt son of the king who grew more senseless by the day.

George knew that Obi struggled with the fact that he had fallen for the next ruler of the British empire, and he tried to help him sort through those feelings, but he often only made it worse. That had been during the days when they never acknowledged how they felt, deciding instead to skirt around the topic. George remembered with a smile the way they had both blushed furiously and avoided eye contact for days after Obi had blurted out that in a way, he saw himself as the Patroclus to George’s Achilles.

It had taken George days—and a herculean amount of courage—to whisper that he had always thought it was the other way around.

Obi hadn’t lived with George at Buckingham House—there was no excuse or circumstance that could have allowed this—but he visited nearly every day. Sneaking over the walls and through the gardens, avoiding the palace guards with a stealth and grace that hadn’t seemed human.

Later, George would wonder how he could jump from a window on the fourth floor and land on the ground without so much as scratch or a stumble, but back then he never did. He supposed he had just accepted it as part of the mystery that was Obi Amadi. ‘The Impossible Boy’, George used to call him. Now he thought that ‘Improbable’ would likely suffice.

He thought about this some more, then he started thinking about other things, and then he must have drifted off to sleep, because when he opened his eyes the room was dark and someone was knocking sharply on the door.

“Your Royal Highness?” it was Alastair, his father’s butler. Which meant— “Your father wishes to speak with you,” said the manservant. “He says it is of the upmost importance, and that you must come at once, Sir.”

“Alright, Alastair, tell him I will arrive shortly.”

“Sir, I—”

“Did he tell you that you were to accompany me right away?”

“I am afraid so, Your Royal Highness.”

George muffled a groan and stood up. Swiping a hand quickly through his hair, he shrugged on his jacket and sash, then opened the door.

“Very good, Sir,” said Alastair, and his tone was apologetic. The king must be in one of his moods, George thought. They had been happening with alarming frequency recently.

He followed Alastair down the corridor that led to his father’s room, servants bowing and curtseying as he passed. He smiled at each of them, but it was forced. This meeting was bound to be excruciating, and he already wished it to be over. They arrived at the royal chambers. Alastair smiled weakly at him and then knocked.

“Good luck, Sir,” he said, and all but ran back the way they had come. _Coward._

George smiled tightly.

“Enter,” said his father, so he did.

 

***

 

When George Augustus Frederick IV had been a boy, his father had loved him. They had both been kinder then, both less scarred by the ruthlessness and contempt that the rest of the world so often held for kings. Granted, George III was the sovereign of the British Empire and so much of this contempt was more than deserved, but their family had not always been royals of the conquering kind. George III’s grandfather had been born in what was now Hanover, a small principality of the Holy Roman Empire that would become a subordinate of Prussia, and then form Germany. They had ruled with dignity and discretion while dreaming of bigger things, never quite believing that they might indeed achieve them.

Then: An Act passed by Parliament in 1701.

In an astonishingly reactionary display of legislation it was decided that only Protestants could succeed the throne, thus removing the approximately fifty Catholics in line ahead of George I for the throne of Great Britain—the idea of which had always been far off enough as to be imaginary, but was now as strikingly real and tangible as the crown placed upon the head of George IV’s great-grandfather at the unassuming age of fifty-four. A line of George’s had followed this one, until George III took the throne and gave his sanity in return. His kingdoms—and it is imperative to remember that being responsible for a kingdom is bound to weigh on one’s mind—were often at war. With each other, with foreign powers, and eventually in the case of America, with Britain. The Seven Years’ war with France hit George III hard, but the loss of the American Colonies hit him harder. The revolution in France worried at him like a needle worming its way under his skin, and the rise of Napoleon to power found the needle worming its way into his heart and then his mind. The weight of the imperialism he had not known life without proved too much, and so, he crumbled.

When George Augustus Frederick IV had been a boy, he had observed in his own quiet way, the descent of a man into the roiling snake-pit of madness. The man had been his father, and the madness had been so violent and so shocking, that at times George wished fervently for his father to be dead. He still wished this, on occasion. He wished this even though he knew what it would mean for him.

When George Augustus Frederick IV had been a boy he had dreaded a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand. He hadn’t even factored in the country that would weigh so heavily on his heart, or the boy that would balance like a knife, point downwards, on his soul.

Now, George Augustus Frederick IV is so very nearly a man, and his father is so very nearly senseless, and they’re both aware with varying degrees of lucidity that a conclusion to the reign of one man is drawing to an end, and that the reign of another is dawning. Both are afraid, but one is more afraid than the other. Both are incredibly sad, but one is sadder than the other. Both of them feel the static in the air of an approaching storm rolling in from the horizon. One of them is significantly more prepared than the other, but neither would delay its coming, given the chance. But both are mad and each in his own way, so that decision is likely to be skewed on both parts.

***

 

The wind blew George’s hair into his eyes as he stepped onto the balcony where his father stood. One of the old man’s thin hands gripped the jeweled top of a cane, the other grasped the marble of the balcony in a vice-like grip. The sun was setting.

“Father.”

The King did not turn around. Whether it was a show of indifference, or a hint at his deteriorating physical condition, George did not know, nor did he care. Neither of them spoke. A garden of manicured hedges spread out before them, a fountain gurgling pleasantly at their center. And beyond that, London.

"This is my legacy,' George’s dying father said abruptly into the silence, sweeping one withered hand in an arc over the city. “This is what I leave you to protect.”

Whatever George had been expecting it had not been this. He felt his heart should be racing, but instead it beat with a slow, thudding inevitability, as though a grandfather clock hung, resolute and foreboding, inside the cavern of his chest.

The sun sank lower under the horizon, spilling red light like blood across the sky. It seemed almost like a portent—an omen. George did not wish to dwell on what prophecy a sky full of blood could possibly describe. He said nothing. His father twitched next to him, muttering and blinking against the dim light. “We were an empire, once,” he said, his eyes downcast. “It’s all gone now. My fault. If I could just—the colonies, _America_ —I fear…” His shoulders slumped. He pointed to the streets spread out in the distance. London sprawled before them like a monarch on a throne of steel, always reaching and growing and crawling with desperate life. Factories billowed black smoke into the sunset, and George was reminded that the city was fueled by coal and supported by iron girders, now. “All of this,” he gestured, “is in your hands.” He blinked, “Your hands.”  And then, “I was barely a man, too, when they gave me this country,” he said, as if from those words George would gain some innate knowledge about his father’s own childhood, about the pain and posturing that came with coming of age at court… about his father’s own father—the man he had inherited the crown from—about the battles led and lost, about conquering countries he had no right to; the blood spilled and pride stripped away, and how he had had a country already and that _Hanover_ was the blood that ran in his veins, not _England._ How he had taught him to rule as if Britannia was only powerful if she too was sprawled on a throne, the rest of the world crushed and squeezed for resources then discarded, held in place beneath one iron clad boot.

Words welled up inside George as though a different person was speaking through him.

“We kings may be victims of circumstance, father,” George said, “but we are never truly victims. We do not suffer, not really. Not like our people do, not like our soldiers do on the Spanish Peninsula, or our children who scrape out a life in the factories and the workhouses.” He turned to face him. Looking into the eyes of the man he held in so much contempt—who he had hated, on occasion—used to terrify him. It didn’t anymore.

“You are going out of your mind,” he said simply. “If you do not relinquish control soon, you will lose more than the American colonies,” he stood straighter, discovering with distant, removed shock that he could look down on his father. “You will lose everything.”

His father blinked at him again. His left eye was unfocussed, his right was rimmed red. George couldn’t hate him, he was too pathetic. And to think he had feared him for so long. This man was a shadow of the one George had once known.

He took a deep breath. “When they place that crown on my head and tell me to rule, I will rule,” he said. “I will do it better than you did. I will give the people the king they deserve. The king you were in the beginning. Except,” he smiled, “I simply refuse to lose myself along the way.”

 _Foolish little prince,_ a voice that sounded suspiciously like his father’s whispered in his mind. _Nothing about this will be simple_. _You will sweat blood and break your heart time and time again to ensure this nation’s preservation. How can you be sure you possess the courage and the will? The grit and determination?_

George dismissed his fears with a flick of his fingers, and leaned over the balcony, taking in the filthy, crowded, coal-choked, beautiful city that would be his. He strained his eyes as far as they could go. Almost as though a veil was slowly being lifted from in front of eyes, he started to see how this power he was being granted was not a curse to be shouldered, or a burden to be nobly borne, but a blessing. One that he could exalt in and make his own.

He closed his eyes.

_‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.’_

 

George had always assumed he formed the last part of that phrase. He knew his father was the first—although his illness had discoloured the greatness and the potential glory past the point of recognition—and he had always thought that Obi embodied the second, although now that George knew of his powers... perhaps, Obi too had been born great. He mentally shuffled faces and titles around in his mind. Obi’s vacancy left a space that needed to be filled.

 

_Some achieve greatness._

He could do it, he thought. He really could. He wanted it badly enough, and George had grown up the heir to the English throne, so for him, _wanting_ was more often than not equated with _having_. He would have this, he decided. But he would not possess it in the same way his father had. He would own it, yes. But he would do everything in his power to ensure that it did not begin to own him _._

The King shivered next to him, but George didn’t spare him a glance. The sense that he was part of something bigger was threatening to overwhelm him, but he would not let it.

  _I simply refuse to lose myself along the way._

He squinted into the fading light, the sun glowing a burnt-ember orange. As the last sliver disappeared beneath the horizon he smiled. The next time the sun rose, it would signal more than the dawn of a new day. He would protect the kingdom that was his birthright with his life. He would sweat blood. He would break his heart. He would marry Caroline and consummate the marriage. He would work with Alarick and destroy the beast that stalked the very city that had birthed him and that he would give anything for. He _would_ give everything, and then he’d give it all over again.

“Parliament will pass the Regency Act within the month. I will ascend the throne, and I will rule like I was born to.”

He would save them all. He had to.

How could he call himself a king if he didn’t?

 

 

 

                                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

[planet: Earth]  +   [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

The gate creaked, rust flaking off and crumbling into the overgrown grass. Wading through a garden path that was now tangled with weeds and nearly invisible under moss and decaying leaves, Alarick shaded his eyes against the setting sun.

This house, these trees, this view. They had belonged to him for eight short years, and then he had left them. He would never forget that night; Obi sleeping in the room next door, watery echoes sounding from the well outside, and the birdsong of early evening. The tug he had felt to jump—the tug that he usually ignored, that was sometimes so debilitating he couldn’t move or eat or speak for days at a time, but never acted upon—was rising in him. He had closed his eyes, lent his forehead on the wood of the table and thought for just a second what it might have been like to give in to it. He had always subconsciously known what he would do and where he would go. Who he would kill. But he had never acted on it. He wasn’t a _monster_ , he told himself.

_You’re no more than a sum of your parts, Alarick, and every single one of those has ‘monster’ written all over it. It’s what you were born for._

He had taken his old tracking chip out of the pouch he wore around his neck and turned it over in his hands. It was tiny and crusted with red—he had ripped it out of his bicep with pliers the night he had decided to run away—and it was leaking sentimental energy like a faulty nuclear power plant leaks radiation.

It had been enough. That moment of mere speculation, coupled with that tugging longing to jump, as well as everything that the tracking chip symbolized to him, had been enough to rip him from the kitchen table and into another time and place. As it turns out, Artifacts whose sentimentality is rooted in emotions such as desperation and rage and the helplessness that comes with unwilling submission and bondage are far more likely to be volatile than those associated with happiness and other such things. After that, Alarick had made a choice, and the result of that choice meant that he had seen his son only briefly in the ten years they had been apart.

Returning to this house was like a stab wound to his gut, accompanied by a warm and welcoming embrace. The memories here were bittersweet, and they burned his tongue in punishment on the way down.

Red tinged light spilled through the leaves of the crab apple tree that had existed here long before he had arrived with Obi and apparently long after they had both left, its leaves delicate shades of green, brown and the occasional pale pink. One of the leaves broke from its branch, drifting lazily groundward. Alarick held out his palm, and the leaf settled against his skin with a faint whisper. It was all the welcome he was going to get. He had forsaken this place and the boy he had raised here. Grimacing, he hung his head, then pushed open the front door, made his way to the bedroom (he had walked these hallways in his nightmares—it was strange to see them obeying the laws of physics and not stretching on forever as he ran, sweating, heart pounding and calling out her name), and stripped the moth-eaten covers from the rotting mattress and lay down.

Then he began to dream an entire world into being; it was time to play god.

 

***

 

Alarick Amadi had been born gifted. It was true that he was a Guide, and that he could harness the sentimental energy an object possessed and use that energy to facilitate jumps of cosmic proportions through centuries and across light years. But—fortunately (or unfortunately, it really depended on who you asked)—he was gifted on top of this.

When Alarick Amadi was born, his name had not yet been Alarick Amadi. His name had been nothing, and he had been no one, but it would not remain that way for long. His parents had died of radiation poisoning on the charred and abandoned husk of planet Earth when he was two years old. He had survived, as he was not human like they were. This kind of thing is usually impossible, but it had nothing to do with his parents, and everything to do with him—or, at least, the _him_ that he would one day become. The Other energy that fuels the creation of the _Arἳcoaryuἠ_ works in mysterious ways, and it is for this reason that Guides are made and not born. The soul of the sentient has to be _right_ , otherwise there is no point.

When Alarick was thirteen and the last of the people left on the shell of the planet that had once housed the Human race were either dead or on death’s door, he had entered his Anchoring. He had had no one to help him bind his energy to any time or place or object and so, by all rights and laws and beliefs, he should have died, and he did.

Briefly.

Alarick’s hearts stopped beating, his soul was ripped and shredded past the point of recognition as his body ceased to exist on the physical plane of reality that it had before.

Then.

Then, he woke up in a field full of flowers and insects and other things he did not recognize, feeling whole and safe and awake for the first time in his life. This should not have happened, but he had no way of knowing this. The sentient who had observed his quiet and instantaneous arrival, however, did.

Smiling, the Head Sentinel of the Auspex Order walked over to Alarick’s prone form and helped him stand. The Sentinel was unlike anything or anyone Alarick had ever seen, as he had no knowledge of life on other planets besides the decaying one he heralded from. He was scared but didn’t show it. He thought that he might be dreaming, but he had learned somewhere that the human brain couldn’t construct faces in dreams it hadn’t seen in real life, and so he cast this notion aside, as he knew that in all his life had never seen a face as savage and as haunted as this one. He didn’t even consider the idea that perhaps he simply wasn’t human.

(That would come later and would be one of the hardest things of all.)

He was led inside, up a staircase and into a room whose walls were made of a clear substance that made the light shine in at odd angles. He was told that he was special, and his abilities were explained to him, and he was given a bed to sleep in and a change of clothes. He was told that this place was a school of sorts, and that they would teach about what he was and how to be the best version of what he was, and so he supposed he should have been grateful.

Alarick had been there for two weeks when he broke his first rule. The other students (who came in every colour and size, and had more arms than him, but sometimes less, and more eyes than him, but sometimes less, but who were all _Arἳcoaryuἠ)_ stuck to the rules, and were obedient, which irritated Alarick immensely. On his third day he had asked one of the older students among them why the condition wasn’t genetic—he would have asked the Sentinel but he had disappeared—and they had replied “Order is the Architect,” which had irritated him even more, as he had heard that phrase a million times too many already. So, he had broken into the library, and started in the ‘H’ section, as the Sentinel had told him he was ‘ _hethrin_ ’. The Sentinel had said this meant ‘ _chosen_ ’ (which Alarick had somehow already known) and that it was another reason he was more special than the others. The Sentinel said it meant he could speak any language without being taught, survive an Anchoring without binding his soul to anything, and then _choose_ his Anchoring Place—which was apparently also _special_ , a word Alarick was growing sick to his bones of hearing. The Sentinel had also said that he had the ability to create whole hypothetical worlds in his mind that could help him predict the outcome of any given situation. Alarick wasn’t sure how any of these abilities worked, or why he was _chosen._ It was all incredibly sudden, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted any of it to be true.

***

Now, in the abandoned cottage, lying on his old and rotting mattress, he closed his eyes. His left hand rested in a clump of dandelions that had sprung out of the floorboards, and his right was flung over his face to block the light that shone through a hole in the thatch of the roof, but he felt none of this. He had come to this place because spaces steeped in memory are often good places to dream when one wants to dream about events that have not yet come to pass.

As Alarick’s body lifted—his arms outstretched on either side, feet dangling drowsily above the mattress, eyelids fluttering, white light shining out intermittently whenever the lids raised—one of his shoes fell off. Then, all the light was sucked from the room, as it always was. Alarick hypothesized that this was a preventative measure written into the magic he performed that was supposed to stop voyeurism, or intrusion into a moment that was the closest thing he ever got to feeling holy. Once, it had occurred to him that maybe his power preferred the darkness because arcane things nearly always did.

Behind his closed eyelids, a world was taking shape, the history of humanity unfolding and unfurling like the leaves of a blooming flower recorded in high speed, blossoming, stop-motion.

 _Make London just like it is now,_ he commanded of the world he was building. _No differences. Yet._

So, the world kept building and growing; people kept conquering and killing other people, people kept loving and caring for other people, and then Alarick was suspended miles above a city where factories billowed thick smoke into the sky, and boats chugged sluggishly across the river that bisected it, and he could feel the years and minutes and seconds flowing slower like they were tears sliding down his cheeks, and then they _stopped_.

It was a quarter after ten o’clock in the evening, and London was exactly as he had left it mere moments ago. Feeling the air with his hands he searched for leverage but couldn’t quite find any, until he moved a little to the left and then he was grasping the matter of this world in his hands. A familiar calm settled over him, as he remembered that this version of London—of the _world_ —was his to bend, and mold, and shape. To pause, and play, and build on. His to burn or save.

 _Or save_. That was what this was, he had to remember that.

With a flick of his fingers, he sped things up again. A week, two weeks, three weeks, a month. This was a hypothetical version of the future he may very well end up living, and in it, London was burning.

Fires raged across the city, London Bridge was collapsing into the Thames, St Paul’s cathedral was a pyre that burned blue with the force of its heat, and above it all was a boy floating in the sky. No, not a boy. A god.

His skin was ivory, white enough to be translucent and pale enough to convince Alarick that his blood would run as white as milk if he were he cut. His angular eyes gleamed red, glowing like slivers of ruby set into his skull. Two perfectly symmetrical scarlet lines ran down either side of his face, like tears of blood dripping out of the centers of his eyes below the pupil. His pin straight hair was cut savagely to chin length. 

A voice boomed out of the sky.

“Hello, little traveler,” it said, dripping darkness. “I don’t recall you seeking permission to come here. To arrive bearing nothing even _resembling_ a sacrifice into a future where I rule.”

The god. His voice was glorious. It was shadowy and liquid, a starless sky at night. Suddenly, terribly, Alarick was certain that every single time he had thought of taking his own life during those times his body had barely belonged to him and his existence had felt beyond his control, the voice that had egged him on had been this one. He was repulsed and in awe and so resentful it hurt, and yet… it was a voice that demanded worship, that demanded submission, and he wanted to give in. Alarick tried to fathom the extent of this god’s power. Even the fact that he was here, interfering in a future that did not exist yet… it was as incredible as it was terrifying.

“You seek this future, as you think that within it you may find the way to destroy me,” the god said. “This is an impossible task, little traveler, and you will fail. I cannot be beaten. I am the shadows that bind you to your past, and the violence that breathes within you. I am your fear and your doubt, and the contaminated, corrupted blood that runs through the veins of your child. The blood that you put there. I am the sovereign of the dead, and I _will_ rule. The people of this city already love me, and they will all belong to me in time.”

Alarick didn’t even attempt to shield himself from the corrupted energy of the voice. He simply closed his eyes and let it wash over him, because this feeling was familiar. He had spent a life time trying to deny the sadness that lived in him, the violence and the pain that had been cultivated by others, and he suddenly found that he no longer wanted to. He was a weapon forged of flesh and blood, of bone and sinew. He was fueled by hatred instead of gunpowder and had been wielded by so many hands that his true shape had been distorted and worn away—so much so that even he could no longer find it.

_I am the shadows that bind you to your past…_

Alarick’s past didn’t have shadows, as there was so little light there that it was mostly darkness anyway. Consequently, he wasn’t so much bound by shadows to his past, as ruled by them in his present, and so to hear the voice personify the shadows that chained him to the ghosts that flitted constantly in the corner of his mind’s eye was nothing short of horrifying.

_…the violence that breathes within you._

This reminded him again that he had not had a hand in his own making. He thought of his wife and her smile, and the soft skin of her hands. The way she had outshone his brutality and violence with her loveliness—blinding him to his true nature for so long that he had been fooled into thinking it no longer slumbered inside of his bruised and aching heart—had been its own sort of magic entirely. An illusion. That was all. And when she was gone, and the curtain had fallen, his true self had blinked its way out of the darkness cast by her light and back into the forefront of his nature, reminding him unflinchingly of what the word _innate_ meant, and that weapons were built for one thing and one thing only.

_I am your fear and your doubt…_

Alarick was not afraid of many things. He doubted, of course he did, but he was rarely scared. The only thing capable of truly frightening him at the moment was—

_…the contaminated, corrupted blood that runs through the veins of your child._

His eyes snapped open. This wasn’t about him, anymore. This was about Obi, about the eight-year-old boy he had left behind, and the ten years they had been apart, and all the years Obi had been sick and it had been his fault.

“Obi,” Alarick said. And though it had not been his intention, the world he had created shifted to accommodate his request. His son materialized on the ground, kilometers below where Alarick hovered. He wondered how the addition of Obi to this future would change it.

This fabricated version of his son was clutching his face, as though in great pain. Under normal circumstances, Alarick would have been too high up to see his son’s face, but he had made this world and so the physics of it altered to his whim, allowing him to see the way Obi’s fingers scrabbled against his cheek in shock, the way his mouth hung open in disbelief; the way his eye socket was empty.

The Sickness.

Alarick felt as though someone was driving an ice pick repeatedly into both of his hearts.

Blue light shimmered around Obi, spreading like shock waves in an ever-increasing sphere that grew to encompass most of the city. Buildings re-built themselves in the light’s wake. Fires were extinguished in one part of the city only to roar to life in another when the sphere of light hit, as this version of the future stretched and re-assembled itself to factor Obi into the equation. London Bridge collapsed in reverse until it was whole again. The fire at St. Paul’s was also swallowed by the blue light—it’s cobalt flames blazing like something biblical—extinguished as the sphere hit, replaced instead by a girl, who materialized out of nowhere, perched on its reconstructed roof. Wild, silky black hair billowed around her face, her skin gleaming as dark and duskily black as the night sky. Her head was thrown backwards, her teeth bared in a cunning grimace as she looked at the god in the sky. Perfectly symmetrical golden lines glimmered on both her cheeks.  

Girl? No. _God_.

The two were the inverse of each other in every way.

Something strange about the usually bustling city struck Alarick suddenly, and for many minutes he was confused. He looked again and again all over the city but could not find what he was looking for from this height. So, he opened a section of sky and stepped through it, manipulating the fabric of the world in such a way that meant he was deposited inside the saloon of an ale-house that faced the river. It was the first location he had thought of when he had silently requested the world show him a busy place.

The ale-house was full of people, eating and drinking and talking… but not moving. They were all as still as a picture in a frame.

This was what he had noticed. The people of the city were still, not a single one of them walking or talking or fighting or laughing. Just… still.

Alarick moved among the frozen people and wondered what had done this to them. A man’s flagon of beer sloshed over the rim of the glass, the cloudy droplets glittering in midair, unmoving. A woman’s glove hovered between the hand it had fallen from and the ground, the silk shimmering dully in the low light. He looked out of the window and onto the Thames. The waves that lapped against the shore were still, the water shining mutely like frosted glass, and the boats that normally trawled across its waters were stationary, great plumes of steam and smoke hanging immobile in the air. These people were frozen in time, and Alarick did not know how this had happened or what the consequences would be. His heart beat a little faster.

Obi was obviously influential in the equation of this future. If he arrived in London there was clearly be a battle to be fought; between the girl on the roof and boy in the sky, between Obi and his sickness, perhaps even between George and the two futures that tugged at his soul. Also, he expected with a dull sense of foreboding, between Alarick and time itself.

He looked towards the sky. The boy-god was gone. He felt a tap at his shoulder and turned slowly around.

“Alarick Amadi,” said the boy—he was definitely more _boy_ than _god_ when he took this form. Alarick could see the microscopic cracks in his armor—bone white and tessellating over his limbs like mechanical, ivory patchwork—better, like this. “You shouldn’t have come here.” His face was like thunder, his brow furrowed like a mountain range on the verge of collapse. “You need to leave before I make you.”

Alarick squared his shoulders and grabbed a handful of air—he could feel the way the world tugged under his grasp—and he _pulled_ it. The world whipped out from underneath them like a sheet, buildings and people flattening and turning two-dimensional as he crumpled the whole thing up—religions and steam power and a city’s beating heart, love and envy and entire dynasties of hate, a whole world of happiness—and discarded it. The two of them were left in the grey space between worlds, and, though his hearts pounded, Alarick began to laugh.

“This is _my_ kingdom, whoever you are,” he said. “I’ve seen your type before. You’re young, arrogant, you think the world owes you a favor. Well, my world doesn’t—and unfortunately for you, that’s where we are now. _My world_. I will not be threatened by the likes of you.” Alarick only realized that perhaps he had made a grave mistake when the god’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly and grew brighter; lightning flashing in accompaniment with the thunder of his expression.

The god, for he was definitely a god now, (Alarick did not know how he had though the word ‘boy’ applicable to this being before) lifted his hand, splaying fingers that looked like they were carved from bone. He clenched them violently into a fist.

“I am older than this planet,” the god said. “I have lived a thousand lives and died as many times as there are people who have passed from one realm into the next. I measure the passage of time in the fall of empires and the death of civilizations. I am an unfathomable, unspeakable thing, and you _will_ show deference.”

Alarick felt the first constriction around his throat, his windpipe closing, cutting off the air to his lungs. He began to choke. The next constriction was around his first heart, and it felt as though a hand cast from iron had been set alight and was now squeezing his heart in one flaming fist. Alarick was starting to lose consciousness, but he heard the god laughing. The sound slid under his skin, burrowing into his cells and burning like acid, eating away at his bones and his marrow until he was helpless and consumed by pain of the highest order.

He heard one last thing before the blackness swallowed him, and it was a threat he would remember for the rest of his life. The voice of the god rang out in the silence, so foreboding even death opened its sleepy eyes.

“This may be your kingdom, but you are _not_ king.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

 [planet: none]  +   [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 “This fucking _sucks_ ,” Obi said. “And that’s putting it mildly.”

Asha nodded in agreement. Tipping her chin back, she rested her head on the concrete wall, shutting her eyes tightly against the fluorescent glow of the overhead lights. They had been playing prisoner for two days already, and Asha was going out of her mind.

The Consortium ran a tight operation, everything clean and clinical and in its place. The guards patrolled the cells at random intervals, the lights turning off periodically to simulate nighttime. Carbohydrate pouches were delivered approximately an hour before the lights went off. The screams were the only things that seemed random, but the way that the sentients screamed made it seem as though even the pain being inflicted on them was coldly calculated; prolonged enough to maim or seriously injure, but never enough to kill. Everything about the place was mind-numbing and claustrophobic and only served to remind her of everything she had left behind.

She felt like slamming her head into the wall or opening the air lock and firing herself into space. How had she allowed this to happen? How had she been so _stupid_? She didn’t feel safe locked up in a cell with the other sentients, even with Obi there. At least the ones in their cell remained silent. Some of the things they had heard from those in neighboring compartments was enough to turn her stomach and bring sharp, angry tears that pricked hotly in the corners of her eyes.

“A human? _Homo sapiens_ , you say? How curious. My brother was given a few of those as a gift from Thracin himself. Stuffed and preserved, of course. He hung them in his entrance hall. They make for excellent decoration.”

“I heard that they were to be the cannon fodder in the next Great War, but that there simply weren’t enough of them to provide a substantial enough fighting force. A pity, really. They could have been useful.”

And, just now:

“Useful? They’re useful, alright. Human brothels are rare, see, but they’re cheap as winbax rocks, and discreet to boot. And they’re _reliable_ , see. A human brothel’s not about to get shut down, is it? They aren’t even citizens are they, so who the fuck even cares? Hah! Not Thracin, that’s for sure.”

Obi growled, “I swear to _god_ , if that guy doesn’t shut up, I will personally blow his brains all over the wall with—with the blaster rifle I don’t have,” he finished dejectedly.

Asha snorted. “And I’ll follow up with a few hundred mega volts of electricity to his sternum from the stun baton I must have lost somewhere.”

They sighed in unison.

“We have to get out of here.”

“I know.”

“Asha—”

“I know. We’ve only got until 1/3/Q/500, and the clock is ticking.”

“We’re going to make it, though. We have to. But first, we’ve got to get off this ship.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Although I must confess,” he continued, “breaking _into_ places is more of my specialty than breaking out, but I’ve never had a code-breaking genius on my side before, so we might just stand a chance.” He smiled brightly.

Asha squinted at him. “I’m not a code-breaking genius.”

“But you could be? Right? If you set your mind to it?”

Asha shrugged. “Back home, I had to hack into government databases to get flight school textfiles for, you know, learning theory, and also to download simvids of different maneuvers and flight patterns. Those were how I learned to fly. I had to be good enough not to get caught, so, I mean, I don’t know about genius, but I’m not _bad_.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at one time.”

Asha rolled her eyes.

“When you talk about ‘back home’,” Obi said quietly, “what was it really like?”

Asha shrugged. “It was… well, it was Gahraan. Working. Praying. Trying to exist in a way that wouldn’t get you killed. It was Mama and me, routine shifts, routine meals. There was violence, but not, it wasn’t… They had to keep us in line, and they used force to do it because they don’t think we can understand. We’re not sentients to them. Wouldn’t you re-program a service droid that wasn’t following instructions? Well, Humans run on code just like droids do if you think about it. Fear is our binary; you’re either scared or you’re not, and if you’re not, then you aren’t working hard enough. Commands; do this. Algorithms; and this and this, but not this when that happens. Functions; when that happens, this is what you do…” She sighed. “I guess they hurt us so much because pain is as good an input as any and it gets the best results. It’s wrong, I know that, but I also don’t know anything else, so it’s easy to forget. I’m glad I left. I’ve wanted to for a very long time.”

Obi was silent.

“Do we—” she paused. “Do we ever get citizenship? Do you know?”

Obi winced. “I’m sorry, Asha. This is the furthest I’ve ever been into the future. I don’t know.”

She was disappointed, but not crushed. If it had been a _no_ for definite, that would have been different. There was still hope. There was always hope.

“Alright,” she said, “you know what—”

Sharp footsteps sounded outside their cell—a contingent of guards moving quickly. Asha and Obi sprang to their feet in anticipation.

“What—” Obi started.

The cell door clanged open, spilling bright white light and four guards into the cell.

Asha and Obi cringed backwards, but the guards advanced, gripping stun batons in eager claws, rifles slung over their shoulders.

Two of them grabbed Asha, slamming handcuffs over her wrists before she had a chance to protest. They pinned her arms to her side and shoved her forwards, marching her towards the cell door and the corridor beyond.

“Asha!” Obi cried, “Hold tight, I’ll get you out, I’ll— _fuck, get off me_ —just hold on! I won’t let them hurt you!”

She struggled wildly against the bonds, throwing one last look over her shoulder to see Obi kneeling on the ground, handcuffed, eyes wild, the glowing barrel of a gun digging into his temple. The guards forced her face forward, clawed fingers digging into her jaw. Asha stumbled, her ankle twisting, bright pain flaring up her calf. She cried out, and the guard to her left snarled,

“Shut up, Human. You’ll have something to cry about soon enough.”

They rounded the corner, tearing her away from Obi’s shouts— _would it be the last time they saw each other? Were they about to die?_ —and into a featureless corridor.

The guards kept up a relentless march through the maze of hallways, and though there were tears blurring her vision, Asha’s analytical mind cataloged the set-up of the prison as they progressed through it. The hallways were concentric circles that grew smaller and smaller as they moved towards the center, with entrances and exits placed at completely random intervals, a watchtower at the middle and one at each point of the compass. The guards hauled her past the southern tower, pushed her through a door that required retinal scanning to bypass and then shoved her to her knees in an octagonal room with drains in the floor and every kind of weapon imaginable on the walls.

Asha was struck suddenly with the nauseating certainty that they were going to kill her. She could already see it. One of them would take a gleaming sword from the wall and swing it in a wild arc, slicing through her arteries and her spine, severing her head from her body. Her blood would slide down the drains in a river of crimson and her corpse would be efficiently disposed of, never to be buried, never to be mourned.

One of the guards kicked her in her ribs. The pain took her breath away, blunt and stabbing, as though a hot poker was slicing through her skin and into her lung. She doubled over but did not cry out. Her hands shook with fury in their restraints.

Three of the guards left the room. The one who had kicked her stayed, before crouching down uncomfortably close.

“It’ll be a pity,” he whispered, “to see such a pretty face go to waste. I’m almost tempted to—”

Asha didn’t let him finish. Slamming her head forward, she headbutted him. Dizziness swamped her almost immediately, but she ignored it and launched herself at him shoulder first, crashing into his solar plexus and driving the air from his lungs. He fell to the floor.

Asha’s boots had been taken from her when she’d entered the prison, and she missed them sorely now, as she pulled off his helmet—she saw unsurprisingly that he was Lithian—raised one bare foot and drove her heel into the bridge of his ridged, scaled nose. Bone splintered and blue Lithian blood gushed out, clotting and coagulating almost as soon as it mixed with the air. Asha gagged and wiped the sole of her foot on the tiles.

Then she realized she was alone. No alarms were blaring, no cold, artificial voice reprimanded her over the speakers. There were no footsteps outside, or angry soldiers shouting commands.

Her eyes widened as the silence continued. Then, a roar of noise jolted her back to reality. Her first thought was that she had been discovered and that the chorus of voices belonged to a contingent of guards coming to haul her back to the cell, but as she listened, she realized that the noise was almost… jubilant. Like a crowd at a show, or an excited audience. She could hear feet stamping, and harsh laughter. She could also hear screams of agony and howls of pain. She stepped towards the door on the far side of the room, and looked out of the small, circular window set into the top. 

A cavernous room stretched out beyond. Row upon row of sentients were crammed into the space, all of them wild looking and hungry for blood. At the center was a ring, a fighting ring, where two figures sparred. No, not sparred. Brawled. They were locked to together, wrestling. Half of a curved, serrated sword lay forgotten, next to a blaster rifle that had been cut in half and was still smoking. A hologram flashed above the ring, numbers flickering on it. A timer. Asha could scarcely believe her eyes. The two in the ring had been fighting for just over twelve hours.

The weapons around the walls of the room suddenly made sense. She was being prepped to go into the ring. The soldier who lay unconscious on the floor was most likely supposed to have briefed her before she went out. Glancing towards the door she had entered from, her stomach dropped. That door had needed codes to open, and the one before that required retinal scans, of which she had neither. The guard was unconscious and she did not have time to wait for him to wake up and then figure out how to force him to assist her.

Her only way out was through the door that led to the ring.

Grimly, she approached the body of the guard and began to strip him. She started with his boots and worked her way up until only his undergarments remained. She left those on.

The clothes were huge and the proportions were entirely wrong, seeing as they were made for a Lithian and not a Human. The boots were just about the only things she could use but even those were uncomfortable due to the groove in the sole of the shoe meant to accommodate for the poisonous spur on a Lithian’s heel. She looked over the clothing a second time and decided it was better to keep her jumpsuit, as thin as it was, and take only the jacket, which she ripped the sleeves off and slipped onto her own arms to act as armguards. She looked ridiculous, but she felt safer, and that was all she really cared about. Turning around to survey the weapons on the walls she looked straight for the guns. There was a decent selection, but the grips were all wrong. None of them suited human anatomy…

 _Yet_ , she thought.

The thing about Consortium manufactured weaponry, was that it was so easily modified. All the parts were compatible with one another as they were all made by the same three companies. Companies that outsourced large amounts of their manual labour to the factories on Gahraan. _Yay for weapons assembly day,_ she thought grimly, before grabbing a solid looking blaster and a smaller, more precision focused pistol, and getting to work.

Taking apart the guns was child’s play and tinkering with the extended burst heat ray setting on another gun until it was hot enough to melt metal was nearly routine for her, but welding the two guns together in such a way that she could grip, stun, and shoot-to-kill was a little bit harder. She was nervous too, so her hands shook slightly. The job was done in just under seven minutes. 

The door creaked when she pushed it open, the smell of cauterized flesh now clouding the air behind her, but the sound was drowned out by the crowing of the commentators and the screams of the crowds. Asha could smell blood and sweat. The air was hot and muggy, swamping her. It was nothing like the cool, antiseptic scented air of the prison, but it was just as foreign, just as unsettling. One of the figures in the ring landed an explosive punch, throwing their opponent onto their backs. The crowd hushed, straining forward in anticipation of a killing blow. The figure picked up the broken sword and turned back to the fighter that sprawled limply on the ground.

“Do it!” someone screamed.

The fighter looked towards the source of the noise and smiled. Blood dripped from a ruby red mouth, broken teeth curving upwards like jagged spires.

They shook their head, and then, before anyone could stop them, turned the sword onto themselves and fell onto the blade.

A gasp rippled through the audience, followed by groans of disappointment.

Asha stood stock-still. All she could see was the broken end of the blade protruding from the fighter’s back.

Her vision tunneled, focusing on the irrefutable fact of the matter: that was to be her fate if she did not escape. To someone who placed survival above nearly everything else, that simply could not compute. Until now, this whole experience had been startlingly, terrifyingly real, it was true. But it had been terrifying in the way a nightmare is terrifying after waking. The terror is remembered, but feels far away, almost. Ephemeral. This was the moment Asha’s terror ceased to exist outside of her and instead took root in her heart. Adrenaline pounded through her veins, whiting out her vision. She did not make the conscious decision to run, but it was what she did. Sprinting along the rows of spectators, she weaved past hulking, muscled-bound bodies and ducked underneath outstretched arms, frantically scanning the perimeter for an exit. Sweat was stinging her eyes and blurring her vision, her breath coming in short, painful gasps, when she finally saw it. A glowing sign denoting an exit, and beneath it, an _open door._ Barreling towards it, she ran, feet pounding along the ground. Then she saw a sight so horrifying she was forced to stop short, nearly tripping. Two guards were dragging a figure through the door and into the tunnel that led to the ring. The prisoner was putting up a fight, kicking and writhing, but they had his hands bound and his feet tied together. It took four Lithian guards to hold him down, cut his bindings and shove him into the tunnel that would deliver him into the ring, but they did it. The door closed behind him with a hiss.

The last thing Asha saw of Obi’s face were his grey eyes, white in the darkness, and his mouth, open in shouts of protest she could not hear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Six

[planet: none]  +   [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

He’d been injected with a sedative, then shoved out of a door and into a tunnel, and now he was here. In the brief time he’d had full control of his faculties, he’d kicked and shouted and stared with wide eyes at his surroundings. He had glimpsed a fighting ring, its dirt floor stained with blood. A corpse, impaled, eyes open. He’d seen a thankless victor waiting to be re-imprisoned, and a crowd shouting for total annihilation. All he could do was wait for the door at the end of the tunnel to open and deliver him to his death. He was disorientated. Everything hurt. The shouts were building to a crescendo, rising and rising and—

The door was rising, too. Like lava races down a mountain side, the red light spilled brightly into the dark tunnel until it reached Obi’s feet and then his face, and the crowd’s cheers reached peak volume and then surpassed it, and Obi felt like he was drowning so he took a breath, but the air tasted like blood.

His palms began to itch.

Information was trickling into his subconscious in a steady stream. Obi had been desperately trying to suppress it, but if he wanted to win this fight…

He opened his mental floodgates and let it in.

Dates and names and dreams inundated him, saturating his own thoughts with foreign ones. Quickly, he filtered out the unnecessary information and found the stuff he was looking for.

There, like a bright, shining thread in a dark sea, was the mind of his opponent.

Obi took an involuntary step back.

A Lithian, a Warrior. A Warrior gone mad. A sentient whose mind was warped and twisted by trauma and by all the things they had seen. This was to be his opponent—a crazed and tortured weapon of thing. He saw gnashing teeth and flinty yellow eyes peering out at him from the mouth of tunnel on the opposite side of the ring.

Obi took a hesitant step backwards. _No,_ he thought _. Don’t do that. You are not helpless. You may be alone and weaponless and at the mercy of barbarians, but you are not without hope. Come_ on, _Amadi, fight back._

The power stirred inside him, latent, but awakening. He drew on it so rarely; relied on it never. But he was desperate—about to fall unwillingly into a situation that he may not emerge from alive. Like a candle flame gutters, sputters to life, so his power grew, calling energy to him in rivulets and then waves until he felt soaked in the stuff.

He looked towards his opponent as they stepped into the light and he registered in a removed way that they were smaller than he had thought. Then he pulled the facts that he shouldn’t know towards him like a rope, following them to their source. Within the tiny gasp of time that was the distance between blinks, he was inside the Warrior’s mind.

Because Obi’s power was this: the ability to be led not only by the sentimental energy of an object, but by the sentimental energy of a sentient, directly to its place of origin.

The inside of the Lithian’s mind was in chaos.

On the only other occasion Obi had used this facet of his power, it had been against a brothel owner in 1808 who had had a fist around his neck and a knife against his gut. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d been so _scared_ , and the man’s mind had been so weak that it had been horrifyingly easy to give in to instinct and ride the rush of energy straight into his psyche. The man’s mind had been dark and filthy. A cave where serpent tailed women lounged on slime-slick rocks—golden coins strung from one of their blood red, devilish horns to the other. Obi remembered recoiling from every surface, loathe to touch any part of his depraved surroundings. Then one of the women had risen like a panther from her perch and flickered a forked tongue at him, and he’d been so repulsed that he’d pulled a revolver—one he hadn’t possessed before thinking of it—from his belt before screaming like a feral thing set free into the wilderness and shooting her, once, twice, three times. The other women had jerked with her, black blood spilling out of bullet wounds that they had not themselves incurred. Then, as if responding to Obi’s need to destroy, the revolver had become a sword instead, and he had slashed at the rock walls of the cave, which had split open like rotting, maggoty fruit-flesh to reveal an emptiness.

An emptiness that sucked the limp, bleeding bodies of the women out of the gap in the rock-flesh and then turned the cave inside out and destroyed it.

Obi had opened his eyes to find his mind separated from the brothel owner’s, and the man twitching on the floor at his feet, his mind totally destroyed.

He hoped to achieve something similar now, but he could not for the life of him decide where to start, as the Lithian’s mind was not a cave. It was a cage. And Obi was not alone.

Different incarnations of the Lithian surrounded him. Carbon-copied clones of the Warrior at different stages of her life. Obi could tell they were a _she_ , now. The blue markings around the eyes of the child tugging at his sleeve that was the same being as the Lithian only _younger_ indicated as such. The child was in distress, clacking her claws and mewling sadly. Obi reached out to comfort her and she recoiled, flinching, as though expecting a blow.

Suddenly, Obi knew what to do. The mind of this sentient was already broken and had been since childhood. Clearly, she had suffered terrible abuse and endured enough violence to break her, so he must un-break what had been broken. Put a shattered mind back in pieces, and right the grievous wrongs of her past. This was not the mind of a monster, this was a side effect of terror, and it was heart-breaking.

Obi moved towards the child, his palms open, his eyes wide. He remembered not to smile—the baring of teeth was a sign of intense aggression in Lithian culture—and knelt, one knee pressing into the floor of the cage, the other raised. The child looked at him blankly, but it was a strange blankness. The kind that did not suggest an absence of thought or emotion, but instead betrayed a fear so debilitating that any indication of feeling becomes impossible.

Obi knew that look. He had worn it himself once (waking up with no left arm is not so much a trivial inconvenience as a life-changing instance of trauma) and seeing it on someone’s face—a face that differed so wholly from his own, but one in which he was mirrored so clearly and on such a fundamental level—was arresting enough that it pulled tears from his eyes. Obi bowed his head and watched his tears fall through the cracked and mangled bars of the cage into the nothingness of the void that surrounded it. One of his tears fell onto the rusted metal, splashing against the muted dullness.

Then: a spark. Colour. Gold.

Liquid gold spread over the bars of the cage from the place his tear had fallen. It spread slowly at first, but soon sped up, racing over the bars until they gleamed. Obi looked around, unsure of what this meant. A gilded cage was still a cage. Unless…

“You don’t want to be free, do you?”

The little Lithian looked at him and shook her head once.

“You couldn’t face the world if you regained your sanity. It would drive you over the brink into… well, into whatever it is that lies beyond madness.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, and far less blank than they had been before.

“You want to stay like this. But you want… to be happy. You want to be the happy kind of mad, not the sad or angry kind that you are now. Blissful delirium. That way they can’t use you as a weapon anymore and you’ll be as good as free.”

The cage grew ornamentation. Golden wings and shining ivy budded from the bars that only moments before had been bloodstained and corroded. Gilded flowers bloomed and shone, and in the reflection of the Lithian child’s eyes Obi saw a golden bird detach itself from the bars of the cage and fly away on delicately feathered wings. He also saw that the face he wore was not his own.

Her broken mind had only been capable of conjuring nightmares, not _heroes_ , and so his appearance had been altered in accordance.

Horns curved savagely from his forehead, curling over newly pointed ears like a ram’s. His face was wolfish and covered in short white fur. Sabre teeth jutted grotesquely over his bottom lip. His reflection smiled, stretching his lips and baring his teeth. Yellow eyes blazed with a vicious intelligence.

The thing that Obi had become inside the mind of a creature so broken by a system that was supposed to be on her side was the symbol of malevolence and domination himself. He went by many names:

Esteemed Emperor, The Chosen One, Sent to Rule. Conqueror. God.

Ai’Varek Thracin.

The revulsion that welled up in him was enough to forcefully remove him from the mind of his opponent. He staggered. The weight of a physical body was a shock but he raised his head. The Lithian was slumped on the floor. Obi nearly cried out—his plan had failed, he hadn’t seen it through to completion, he should have—

Then she lifted her head, and smiled, and he knew that he had saved her.

“Obi!” screamed a frantic voice, hoarse with shouting.

Whipping his head around, he scanned the crowd.

“Obi! _Over here!_ ”

Asha’s face was streaked with sweat and grime. Her hair was escaping its cornrows, unravelling into a wonderfully wild, curly mess. She was wearing the same white bodysuit that he had been given, but had somehow acquired khaki padding around her arms, and was grasping a half-melted blaster rifle in desperate hands like she was itching for the opportunity to use it. Her eyes were glazed over with anger and fear, survival instincts transforming her into someone he barely recognized.

He had never been happier to see her.

“ _Run_ ,” she screamed. So, he did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

[planet: none]  +   [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Asha’s heart had jumped into her mouth when she’d seen the huge, hulking Lithian Warrior stalk out of the tunnel opposite Obi. There was no way he could survive combat with that thing, she had thought, and had been about to take aim, but then he had frozen, and the Lithian monster had frozen, too. They had remained that way for all of five seconds before Obi had staggered and fallen to his knees, and the Lithian had keeled over completely. She had screamed at him to run before turning and sprinting away. She could only hope he had followed her.

Although, that wasn’t strictly true. That was the version of events she might have told Obi himself, if he had asked, because there had been a moment…

A moment when she had seriously considered leaving him behind.

It hadn’t been intentional, she just—

She was so used to being selfish, where ‘self’ meant AshaandAnila and left no room for anyone else. She had left her mother because she ultimately believed that rescuing Aziza was the best thing for both of them; Anila would be absolved of the guilt that surely hung over her, and Asha would get an adventure and a _sister_ thrown into the bargain. She would get to live the life she’d been granted instead of just exist in it. She couldn’t do that if she was dead.

And so, she had faltered. She had seen Obi being dragged into the ring and a voice had said _he’ll be dead within minutes, just leave him. Emotional attachments are simply a weakness and you are not weak, are you Asha? Are you?_

But she had taken that voice and shoved it down so deep within her it ceased to exist. It was a testament to how far she had come that she did not act on it. She stepped back from the quick-fire appeal of acting purely on instinct and impulse and considered— _truly considered_ —the real implications of her actions. Disgust had choked out the tiny part of her that thought it viable, killing it without mercy and, surprisingly, without regret.

Now she was running down a deserted corridor, following the smell of engine oil on the air.

When the guards had dragged her through the corridors on her way to the ring, she had felt a rumble in her feet that was as familiar as her heartbeat. The beautiful sound of an engine starting. She’d caught the smell of oil ten steps later. It had been faint—masked by the strong scent of antiseptics and her own sweat, but it had been there.

Now, she was retracing her steps, heading for a place she had only ever dreamed of entering: a hangar housing space-worthy craft.

A second set of frantic footsteps joined hers and she turned around.

Obi was rounding the corner, long legs eating up the distance that she had just covered. His face broke into a manic grin when he saw her.

“Asha!”

“No time to stop,” she said. “If we’re planning to get out of this place alive, we need to run for our lives.”

“Christ, it’s nice to see you too.”

She yanked him by his arm, and they barreled onwards.

“How do you know where we’re going?” Obi gasped. “There are so… so many stairs.” He heaved in a breath. “I know we’re technically running down them, but I think I’m about to pass out.”

Asha rolled her eyes, grinning beside herself, and pushed forward.

“It shouldn’t be much further. Just—”

There it was. The distant rumble, but not so distant this time. And no longer under their feet. She stopped abruptly in front of a door and pulled the Lithian guard’s hand from her waistband, holding it up to the palm scanner.

Obi let out and incredibly undignified screech and pointed at the hand.

“Is that a fucking—Asha, is that a _cut off_ _hand_?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, is it?” Then the door hissed open and they were standing in a room that housed a fleet of spacecraft so high-tech it almost brought tears to Asha’s eyes.

She ran over to the nearest jet—a slick little beauty of a plane—two seats with room at the back for supplies, fully equipped to jump through star gates and enter hyperspace, as well as fitted with two compact laser canons mounted on the nose and under the cockpit. The nose was sharp as a knife and twice as deadly. She reached out a hand and laid it on the sleek, monochrome surface. There was something different about the way the metal had been treated. She bent down, trying to catch the light on the surface of the metal…

“Are we really not going to talk about the severed hand you’re holding?” Obi said.

“ _Shush_ , I’m thinking.”

Translucent hexagonal panels coated the outside of the craft. She had not thought she would see these in her lifetime and now—

“Asha would you hurry up? I can hear footsteps!”

She shook her head mutely. “I think the Consortium have figured out advanced optic cloaking.”

Obi raised his eyebrows.

“They’ve mastered what is essentially invisibility. They can cloak their ships using advanced technology, rendering them invisible to the naked eye. It’s been done before, but no one has ever managed to construct panels that will fool the eye of almost any species. If my suspicions are correct—”

“Hey!” shouted a gruff voice. “What are you doing?”

Asha heart stopped. A guard was running towards them, blaster out and headpiece crackling with voices. Back up must already be on its way.

“Obi, quickly!”

She decompressed the entrance hatch and jumped in, hauling Obi after her. The hatch closed with a hiss, and she wrapped her fingers around the joystick. She grinned.

A laser bounced off the side of the craft, sparks ricocheting onto the ground.

Asha revved the engine. Once, twice—

And then they were off.

She sped towards the door of the hangar and realized belatedly that the door to the outside was closed. But the room was huge and it was still a far way away, they had time to open it, surely. Her engines were still warming up, and now red lights were flashing, and the door that had been closed was now _locking_.

She had no other choice. She opened fire. The control panel shorted out and exploded. The red lights turned off and the door began to slide open. They were nearly on top of it, and it still wasn’t wide enough for them to slip through. They would scrape the side of the craft as it opened from left to right and risk ripping a hole in the side of their craft as the engine was torn off. They would be sucked out into space, screams swallowed by the vacuum. She made the only decision she could and took the risk.

“Hold on,” she said.

Asha yanked the joystick to the side. The craft flipped, turning vertically on its side.

They slipped through the gap, and out into the night.

Asha righted the craft, then slammed the button that would put them into hyperspace and entered an equation she had learned from books on Gahraan that would deposit them in a place she knew they couldn’t be harmed.

The Consortium ship vanished into a blur, as the stars around them stretched and they were flung into darkness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight

[planet: Earth]  + [City: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

 

“If I may offer my opinion, we should—”

“—the soldiers are tiring, Your Highness. They’re hungry, lethargic—”

“Bonaparte is relentless in his attacks. He forces his men to march forward at high speeds, covering vast swathes of land in mere months in an attempt catch us unawares—”

“—the situation is dire, but there is hope. There are talks of a Seventh Coalition—”

George couldn’t take it anymore.

“All of you leave,” he said. “At once.”

Silence was his only response.

George stood, straight-backed and rigid until the last man had left the room. Then he collapsed onto a chair and sunk down until his back lay on the seat and his legs sprawled out under the table.

He swore, a long and convoluted swear, before groaning loudly and sliding fully onto the floor.

“I cannot do this anymore,” he groaned to the empty room. “I refuse on the grounds that is bad for my constitution.” The chandelier above him swam in and out of focus, the candlelight piercingly bright, yet hazy at the same time.

The crux of the matter was his exhaustion. He had not known it was possible to be this tired. His courtiers and generals thought him insufferably lazy and indolent, but the reason behind his crippling lethargy—the reason he kept entirely to himself—was the double life he had chosen to live. By day, he was the Prince Regent, ruler of Britain and her colonies, commander of armies and engaged to a German Princess whose name he barely bothered to remember. By night he hunted a god through the streets of London with a time-traveler of extraordinary ability by his side. He hid bruises under high collars and long sleeves, sliding scraped palms into silk gloves every morning, whilst trying to imagine what his father would say if he attempted to explain it all away; ‘Sorry I fell asleep at the council meeting earlier, I retired at four in the morning last night as I spent the whole evening lying on top of a brothel in an attempt to pin down the location of the vengeful god I’ve been stalking for a while now.’ He would smile then, and say, ‘No father! I have never touched hallucinogenic drugs in my life.’ And, despite what he would tell his father were he asked, he downed laudanum by the bottle in an attempt to stay sane, to repress the alien memories and the night terrors and the shaking, and felt the drug sinking its claws into him a little more with every single dose. He could feel himself forgetting how to stop relying on it, but his belief in his self-control was unwavering. Of course, people knew that he was troubled; his father was going mad and he was stuck in the unenviable position of almost-king, suspended between princehood and kingship with one eye on his subjects and the other on his freedom… but they could never know about his dependency on the drug. That simply would not do, and he knew better than to alert his enemies to any sort of weakness, especially a weakness that could bring the whole country crashing down around his head.

“You alright, mate?”

George started, sitting up so quickly that he smashed the bridge of his nose onto the rim of the table.

“ _Shit_ ,” he swore, pressing the back of his hand gingerly to split skin. “What in god’s good name do you want?”

Alarick ducked his head, looking semi-apologetic.

“Sorry about that, didn’t mean to startle you—”

“Well you did.”

“…So, I gathered. Anyway, I’ve got news.”

“Oh?” George dragged himself out from under the table and sat down heavily on the chair. “It had better be good. I am… not in the mood for shenanigans.”

“Heh,” Alarick said. “ _Shenanigans_.”

“Oh, just spit it out will you.”

“People are rising from the dead,” he said, and smiled. “I hope that doesn’t qualify as shenanigans.”

George looked at him. Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew his emergency dose of laudanum before tipping it back and drinking it in one swallow. Much better.

“Say that again,” he said, “but slower.”

Alarick looked at him with mild concern before pulling up a chair and saying, “Your Highness. There have been reports of people dying, and then returning to their old lives like nothing is amiss. Their family members cry over their bodies in morgues, and dress them for funerals, _bury_ _them_ , before waking up days later to knocks on their front doors and the faces of dead people who look very much alive staring back at them.” Alarick shrugged. “They think it’s a miracle.”

“You think it’s him. The other god.”

“Who else could it be? When we… spoke, he talked about worship. He wants them to love him. I… Maybe that is what he’s looking for here. We know he was a deity of death in the place he came from. Maybe he wants to expand his reach… but if death is what he wants then why not travel to a reality where he could build a new underworld? Or travel to a time when people believed in gods of death on a larger scale?”

George was struck then, by the idea that this god was Hades, come back from obscurity to reap vengeance on them for forgetting him. Had Alarick not said he looked carved from marble? But he shook his head. Now was not the time to romanticize this.

“If worship is what he wants,” George said cautiously, “then, surely, he could plant some kind of belief on their minds, make them attribute the miracles to him. Certainly, that would guarantee the love that he seeks so desperately?”

Alarick was nodding his head.

“I don’t think our godly little problem is as powerful as he’s pretending to be,” he said. “In my experience, the power of a god, or those masquerading as such, comes largely from belief. If no one believes in their existence, do they even exist? How can they? People have always existed before their gods, it is a fact that many ignore, but that does not detract from the truth of it. Gods are a byproduct of the need to be loved unconditionally. Like a lonely child creates an imaginary friend, humanity—indeed, most sentient races—create larger than life figures _in their image_ who they look to for comfort, for love.”

“The god you described doesn’t seem very loving.”

“I do not believe he is a god anymore. He has become something else entirely. I’m not sure what.”

They fell silent.

George wondered what Obi would have done, faced with this confounding conundrum of a problem. His head pounded, his eyes felt heavy. The laudanum flowed thickly though his blood. He found he didn’t know. He tried to picture Obi’s face, and nearly couldn’t. This made him sick to his stomach. God, he missed him.

Taking two deep breaths, and a minute more to compose himself, George turned back to Alarick. There was so much of Obi’s face in his. The same sharp jaw, the same mouth, though Alarick’s eyes were dark, almost black, where Obi’s had been a clear, startling grey. _Had been?_ Were.

“What do you propose we do, then, about the living dead?

Alarick was still for a few seconds, then he clapped his hands onto his knees and stood. “I think we need to observe the awakening of one of these… living-dead, in action.”

George grimaced. “How are we supposed to do that?”

Alarick smiled darkly. “Meet me in the basement at a quarter past two tomorrow morning if you would like to find out.” Then he tipped his fingers in his signature salute—George could never tell if it was mocking or not—pulled something shiny out of his pocket, and vanished into thin air.

***

 

The walls of the ballroom were spinning. The orchestra had struck up a lively tune that had all the eligible bachelors of London’s aristocracy grabbing giggling girls in frothy dresses by their waists and spinning them in giddy circles. George watched the dancers from an alcove on the balcony, nursing a flute of champagne and the beginnings of a headache. He should really be down there enjoying himself. This was his party, after all. He just… He couldn’t help but think that the next time he set foot in a ballroom with the intent to dance the night away, to forget the outside world for a single evening… would be on his wedding day. The day that would include vows and kisses and the exchange of rings, and promises doomed to be broken, and that would, inevitably, give way to the night.

He sighed and took another sip of champagne. The taste was cloying and sweet, and suddenly disgusting. He put the glass down and went to fetch some water.

A pair of girls were whispering at the top of the stairs.

“Oh, but surely you’ve heard about the Angel? They say he dresses all in white, with hair the colour of fresh snow and eyes as red as valentine hearts, willing to revive people from _beyond the grave_!”

George withdrew sharply, pressing himself into a nearby alcove and straining his ears above the din of the ballroom.

“—surely that’s just the common people talking? It sounds just the right kind of scandalous to capture their attentions so completely….”

“No, it isn’t! Just last week Elizabeth Miller—you know, Charles’ cousin with the hawkishly large nose—died of smallpox.”

“Oh yes, I heard about that… such a pity, I—”

“But wait! I saw her just last week outside Sotheby’s at the Exeter Exchange chatting up Henry Beaulieu—absolutely _shameless_ of course, you know Liz. So _of course_ I got as close as possible, and overheard her telling him that she had been saved by an _angel_. ‘The Angel’. She said he appeared to her in a circle of light and whispered right in her ear that he was saving her for when the world is made anew! I’ve even heard that they’re putting up a little church for him at the corner of Iffley Road in Hammersmith. Though I heard that from Daisy Smolkin so it likely isn’t true.”

The girls laughed and linked arms, walking down the stairs and out of earshot.

_She said he appeared to her in a circle of light and whispered right in her ear that he was saving her for when the world is made anew._

George felt sick to his stomach at the thought of live corpses walking the streets of his city. At the thought of that thing worming its way into the minds and hearts of the people he had sworn to protect. He felt spread too thin; gauze pulled in so many directions you could see the individual strands and the gaps between them. His life was too much water and not enough wine; a second’s worth of time to fill a minute’s gaping silence; stitches pulled too early from a wound, near-healed but not quite. His mouth felt dry. He needed a drink.

But, as he cast his eyes around for a waiter, he caught a glimpse of the impossible.

A dark, elegant hand reaching for the slim neck of a wine bottle, a strong profile, a sharp jaw, piercingly grey eyes offset by strikingly dark skin. A vision in a black suit—white teeth, sharp grin, smiling, smiling—

The glass dropped from his hand.

“Obi,” George whispered. But he had disappeared, swallowed by the crowd.

George ran, skidding down the grand staircase, barely avoiding the other partygoers, and stepping on more than a few coat-tails. He slowed as he reached the dancefloor, peering through the crowds for a sign, for anything—

 _There._ Walking towards the balcony.

“Excuse me! If I could just—My apologies, if you don’t mind—" With as much grace as he could muster, George pushed his way through a crowd that seemed alarmingly intent on sucking him back inside and finally made it to the balcony doors. He opened them an inch and slipped outside.

There was no one there. The wind was cold, howling at the altitude, and immediately chilling him through his clothes, piercing him to the bone. Music from the ballroom carried softly out into the night only to be snatched away by the wind. George caught the sound of violins and a melancholy piano indicating a slow dance that he was more than happy to be absent for. He could see a couple walking towards the fountain in the gardens of the park, their chaperone following at a respectable twenty paces. He looked up at the sky and sighed. Of course, Obi wasn’t here. What was he? Stupid?

 _No,_ his conscience supplied, _just inebriated_. God, he wanted to—

“Hello,” said a voice.

George turned to his left, startled, hopeful.

He froze.

A boy who looked to be around his age, but who George knew for a fact was not, was leaning against the marble balustrade of the building.

His white hair was loose, falling in straight sheets to his chin, strands of it lifted by the breeze. His suit was also white, as was his shirt and his skin. All of him so pale and bloodless he looked carved from marble. When the god turned to face George, the prince saw that his eyes were red, like chips of glowing garnet. Gusts of cold rolled off him like fog, freezing the water in the air, making it cold and dry and near-impossible to breath. The back of George’s neck prickled. He clamped his jaw shut to stop his teeth chattering.

“What do you want?” he asked hoarsely.

The god turned his head demurely to the side, smiling slowly to reveal teeth as white and straight as could be. “What I want,” he said, “is for your pretty face to stop looking so terrified. I’m not going to kill you, little prince. I simply want to talk.”

George’s heartbeat tripled in speed inside the space of a second, which he had not thought possible, seeing as it was already close to beating its way out of his chest.

A clock-bell tolled dimly in the distance. Neither of them spoke. George counted twelve rings. Midnight. He only had two hours before Alarick arrived.

God, there were two whole hours before Alarick arrived.

The god spoke again, “I know what you’re thinking—” he stopped when he saw the horrified look on George’s face at his words. Then he laughed, and it was as though the night sky had become a sound, and it was pouring out of him _._

 _I do not believe he is a god anymore,_ Alarick had said. _He has become something else entirely._

 “No, not quite like that, I’m afraid, but almost,” he stepped closer, still smiling. The expression seemed forced and unnatural. George was struck with absurd image of the god practicing smiles every night before bed in an attempt to appear less like a predator animal and more like a human. The clouds obscuring the moon parted, throwing moonlight onto George’s face and into his eyes. George blinked rapidly, certain the god was playing tricks, but he was still looking at George, and no longer smiling. His eyes were wide and… and full of wonder, almost.

He whispered, “I wonder what form my messenger sent, when I told it to make you come to me.”

He was uncomfortably close now, but George knew that stepping back would shift the balance of power so terribly that he might as well offer his throat up in submission and beg for the god to slit it. George could see the bright scarlet of his pupils, the crimson of his veins snaking down his neck, blood rushing ruby-red under impenetrable porcelain skin.

“You are… so _alive_ ,” the god whispered. “So vital. I can hear your heartbeat, you know. Taste your fear. The flush of your skin, I—your breathing, too, each exhalation, I can—the _adrenaline_ , racing.” He closed his eyes. “Your blood, like wine, flowing so _freely_. I often wonder,” he breathed, “what it would look like on the marble. On my hands. But I couldn’t. You’re too…” he trailed off, his eyes inches from George’s own. “ _So alive_ ,” he repeated. “It’s intoxicating.”

“I don’t—” George started, but the god lifted two perfect, marble-white fingers and pressed them to his mouth.

 _Cold_.

Impossible cold. Fractals of ice burying their way under his skin, leaching the warmth from his bones, consuming it. He jerked, gasping, and one of the god’s fingers slipped inside his mouth.

He decided then that he didn’t care about an imbalance of power, because it _didn’t exist_. He was nothing, he was—

 _No_.

He ripped himself away, shivering, jaw aching.  

The god was looking at him with bright, curious eyes, head cocked too far to the side. It looked inhuman. Of course it did, George thought blearily, _he isn’t._

“I will ask you one more time,” George growled hoarsely. “ _What_ do you _want_?”

The god’s expression steeled. “I already have half of what I want,” he said and George’s stomach dropped. “Noticed anything missing recently, little prince? I’ll give you a hint. It’s very shiny and does not belong to you.”

George closed his eyes. His worst suspicions, confirmed. How ideal.

“How did you get that?”

“How I got it is immaterial. If I want something I possess it. Sooner rather than later.”

“But not this,” George said, opening his eyes. “Not whatever it is that you can’t find. And you need me, that much is obvious. But I can tell you one thing, and I hope you’re listening; you will _never_ possess me.”

The god smiled. “I think I will. And the fact that you don’t want it, will make it even better when it happens,” he blinked slowly, eyes hooded, and let the full implications of his statement sink in.

George physically recoiled, his hands clenching into fists. “How— _How dare you_ ,” he hissed. He wanted to turn his back, to walk away in disgust, but his feet were rooted to the floor as if he were frozen. He tried to move. Couldn’t. He tried to call out, to take a step, to lift a single finger, but couldn’t. Cold dread settled over him like a shroud.

“Much better,” the god whispered. “I think I like you better like this. Helpless. It’s humbling.” He arched an eyebrow and grinned slowly, like a predator watching his prey struggle against the canines already piercing its velveteen throat.

He had a predator’s grace, too, George thought distantly. Long athletic limbs and wild eyes. An arctic wolf. A snow leopard.

“Why you?” the god asked. “Why would one of _them_ leave half a soul with _you_? _In you?_ You are nothing. Unless…” he paused. “I have already seen humans achieve the extraordinary in the name of this thing they call love. They lose their minds over it. Kill themselves over it, if you can believe that.”

Even if George could have spoken, he wouldn’t have.

“I think,” the god said, “that you could believe it. I think the reason that one of that kind—one of those strange travelers—left part of their soul with you, was because they loved you, and you them.” He wrinkled his nose. “I will not pretend to understand. But I do know this: were I to threaten the object of your… love, you would do anything to save them. You might even die.”

Again, George said nothing.

“How interesting. I could not have predicted this.” He tilted his head again, assessing, evaluating. Then he flicked his hand, and George could move again. He straightened his spine and lifted his chin. _This was his palace, was it not?_

George looked the god right in his ruby-red eyes and glared. He could threaten George all he wanted. The ‘object of his love’ was nowhere to be found, this he knew better than anyone. A scorching bitterness rose within him, but he pushed it down. For once Obi’s tendency to vanish was doing them both a favor.

“I would sooner end my own life than aid you in any way. Whatever you need, you will not get from me willingly.”

The god scowled.

“That’s half the problem, isn’t it?” George asked, and despite himself, despite everything, he could have laughed. “Whatever you need from me, it has to be given willingly. I have to want to. Well _, I don’t_.” He was smiling now. He felt like a petulant child refusing to do chores, and it was _brilliant_. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to try a little harder than threatening me if you truly want to get whatever it is that I have.”

The god’s face was blank now. It should have been terrifying, but the deeper into this exchange the two of them had gotten, the less the god’s face had been synonymous with the word holy and more closely linked to the word _boy_.

The boy took a step back, white hands clenched into fists. Veins, redder and angrier than before corded in his wrists and pulsed along his neck.

Then, his entire being flickered like a candle flame and disappeared.

A hand snaked around George’s neck from behind and fitted itself under his chin, pressing down, choking him without the intent to kill. Cold pierced his throat, biting at his flesh. The god’s cheek brushed against his, his harsh voice whispering in his ear.

“You think you have won this time, but you are wrong,” he said, with a voice like splintered glass. “I have seen the future, I know what comes to pass. Enjoy your life while you are still able to live it, princeling. I will be back for you, and next time, you won’t survive. _My name is Iel._ Do not forget it.”

Then the hand was gone, and so was the god, and warmth was finally seeping back into George’s skin. He gasped in lungful after lungful of cold air, and slumped over the balustrade, his head in his hands. Wind howled through the trees of the garden. There was a storm coming, George could smell the sharp, smoky crackle of lightening in the air.

Then, suddenly, he could see it, too.

It happened almost in slow motion. The clouds seemed to spark, and then they split, hurling a bolt of pure light and energy at the balcony where George stood. There was a thunderous crack, as stone separated from stone and marble disintegrated.

The balcony separated from the walls of the palace and fell, taking George with it.

 

***

 

Warm covers lay heavy over his body. Every single limb ached dully, his head swam and throbbed. His eyes felt glued shut.

He groaned, and even that felt like fire scorching down his throat.

“Water,” he whispered. “Please.”

There was a rustle of skirts, and then a cool glass of water was pressed into his outstretched hand. He could barely grasp it, but there were hands slipping under his back, pushing him gently into a sitting position, and then bringing the glass to his mouth. With immense effort he lifted his eyelids and blearily took in the scene before him.

He was in his bedroom, that he recognized immediately. The light outside was low, early evening perhaps, candles burning dimly in all the corners of the room.

“Darling? How do you feel?”

George froze. Floral perfume, soft, lilting r’s. Soft hands, round nails. The muted shine of a crown.

“Mother?”

Queen Charlotte blinked slowly, “Yes, my dear?”.

George stared at her in disbelief. He hadn’t spoken to his mother in months. He fought not to shudder as he remembered their last exchange, the blankly terrified look in her eyes as he told her that her husband—his father—was sick, and that _no, he wasn’t getting better_. He’d advised that she move permanently into the Queens House, or at the very least into the lodge at Windsor, but she’d stayed adamant that she accompany her dying husband to the house at Kew, and so that was what she had done. George had watched from the window as her carriage trundled down the path away from the house, a terrible feeling of sinking dread sitting in the pit of his stomach. The reports of her temper worsening worried him, as did the whispers of her depressive moods, and the fact that she hadn’t left the palace at Kew for months, not even to attend the concerts she used to adore so much… It did not make sense to him, her being here.

“Is everything quite alright, George?” she asked.

“Yes, mother, I’m fine.”

She chuckled, “Well I am not too sure about that. You fell three storeys, my love. The court physician says God Himself must have had a hand healing your broken bones. He says it is a miracle you survived, and that it is because God loves this family, and that you have served Him so well, that you are here and not in Heaven.” She hugged, and he was forced clench his jaw in an attempt not to wince or cry out. The pain in his arms was enough to take his breath away, and for a brief second, he was falling again, chunks of marble battering him, _burying him_ —

“Have you seen any of your sisters lately, George? They miss you, you know.”

George was just about lucid enough to scoff at that. He had twelve siblings, who he loved, but who he rarely saw. His brother Frederick had been his closest companion, but he had been shipped off to the army years ago on their father’s orders, leaving George in London with his sisters, and the brother’s his mother kept producing, who were sent away one by one from the city to Hanover, Germany, leaving George quite alone again to deal with the issue of his father, and then the issue of his mother.

They fell silent, the soft patter of rain outside the windows echoing dimly inside the large room. George looked at his mother. The candlelight softened her edges, the narcotics blurring her face into its base components. Kind brown eyes, so much more vacant than they had been before. Full lips, downturned. Frown lines, and white hair, and the circlet of gold on her brow. A queen and a mother and a woman and a sacrifice of sorts, he thought. _She gave her life to us_. There had been two other sons, Octavius and Alfred. They had died, and left the family reeling not once, but twice. Two princes gone within the space of six months, and Octavius had been… well, he had been their father’s favourite for one thing. George would never forget his father grabbing him by the shoulders, shaking him, a wild, feral look in his eyes, as he told George that _there will be no Heaven for me, if he is not there._

Privately, George believed that moment to be the madness had hooked its claws into his father’s heart.

He had never spoken to his mother about it and doubted he ever would. It wasn’t because he did not care. It was because he did not know how.

“I think I shall sleep now, mother. You do not—If you have other duties you must attend to, do not allow me to keep you here.”

His mother cooed at him, brushing her ring-laden fingers through his hair.

“I will stay until you are well, and until Princess Caroline arrives. The physician has assured me you will be upright and walking by the date we set.” She smiled at him. “Not long now, my love. Not long now.”

George’s heart clenched.

“Mother, what—what is today’s date?”

“It is the sixth day of April, darling.”

“The sixth… the sixth! But the wedding is—”

“On the eighth, dearest, yes. I’m afraid there is no way to postpone it. I had hoped, due to your condition, but it would seem…” she trailed off. “Your father was most keen for you to be wed as soon as possible.” She spread her hands in apology. “There is nothing to be done.”

George stared at her, willing with all his might that the horror her felt internally would not to show in his expression.

“I see,” he forced out. “I see.”

His mother looked sad.

“My little prince,” she said. “All grown up.”

George smiled tightly at her as he twisted the lid off the bottle of laudanum he had spied on his dressing table and tipped it down his throat. His muscles relaxed almost immediately, the familiar euphoria sweeping over him, elation and a quiet, consuming rapture flooding his senses. He sighed, sinking further into the pillows. He hadn’t realized quite how sad he’d felt before.

Sleep reached out its arms for him, and he welcomed the embrace, falling into unconsciousness with a blank smile on his face and a muffled struggle in his heart.

 

***

 

Two days later he was standing shakily at the altar, the notion of sobriety but a distant, hazy memory, staring dazedly into the wide, watery eyes of his wife-to-be.

The crowd was silent. The Archbishop was silent. George’s head pounded, his vision swimming. His wedding robes were swallowing him whole, his vision swayed. Colors, over-saturated and dripping from the ceiling bled into one another, a hallucinated kaleidoscope of pattern and pigment. The shapes of the room that had been overwhelmingly, painfully clear to him mere moments before, were now blurry and indistinct, as if viewed through gauze. A drop of sweat rolled down his neck. He was hyperaware of the itchiness of his garments and the heaviness of the crown on his head. His hands shook, his whole body trembled. He looked slowly, dumbly, towards the doors of the chapel. Then he looked at his father.

George III returned his gaze with a remarkable lucidity. His eyes were clear and his posture military. He shook his head, once.

Turning back towards Caroline—Caroline, in her gleaming silver dress, so tight at the waist it must have been sewed around her waif-like figure, billowing tissue and lace from her hips—hips that held no appeal to him no matter how long he stared. Caroline who barely spoke English, looking ready to collapse under the weight of her velvet, ermine-lined cloak—he swallowed. His tongue felt heavy and swollen in his throat, he could not open his mouth, the words simply refused to come—

 _Remember to be kind_ , Alarick had said.

George sighed, and the laudanum in his blood echoed the sigh throughout the chapel until the room was swimming in remorse and resignation. The angels in the stained glass sighed and lowered their wings. The Virgin Mary painted onto the triptych of the altar sighed a blue sigh and bowed her head, tears running down her martyred, holy cheeks.

Caroline had not asked for this, and he would not make her suffer for it.

She looked into his eyes and gave a small smile of encouragement.

Could he love her, if he tried? Most likely not. But he could promise to care for her.

 _I’m sorry, Obi_ , he thought. _I have no other choice_.

His gaze turned empty, his face went blank, he said his vows.

He would not remember them in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

[planet: none]  +   [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

The Nautikos Space Station was a place of legend. A spherical spaceship hundreds of kilometers across, it was so huge it generated its own gravitational field. From a distance, Obi thought it looked like a planet, glowing with the lights of thousands of ports, and glittering with the ships that docked there.

It was often the destination of the sentients Obi had dubbed ‘Techgrims’. Techgrims were tech fanatics who had made it their life goal to travel to the NSS at least once in their lives. The ‘grim’ part of their name originated from the old Earthen word, ‘pilgrim’, and it was true that for many, a visit to Nautikos was a religious experience. As they drew closer, engines thrusting and powering them through, Obi was beginning to understand why. It was beautiful. _God_ , he thought _, Asha is going to lose her mind when she sees this_.

Of course, Techgrims would all be banned under the new rules and regulations instated by the 175th Station Master. Obi rolled his eyes in disgust. The 175th Station Master—the newest in a succession dating back thousands and thousands of years—was widely despised. The whole point of the Nautikos Space Station was _fate_. You were supposed to be able to walk on, and just _know_ where your train would be leaving from. There were no tickets, no fares or charges. People came and went as they pleased, and the station relied on donations, and wealthy patrons and charity, and everything was alright, and everyone was happy. After all, who could justify putting a price on destiny?

 _The 175 th Station Master, apparently_, Obi thought bitterly.

His ascension had made headlines, his bold claims that he would revolutionize the way people accessed their destinies had excited everyone… and then they had happened and suddenly such a simple thing as destiny was only available to the wealthy, and the poor were kept poor by their inability to seek the future that was theirs, and the NSS was bringing in millions on millions of digits each Blutonion Movement on the back of a scheme that was abusing basic sentient Rights. It was disgusting.

Two hours later they had docked. No questions had been asked, no identification papers had been queried after. Their visors and the black and white stripes of the Consortium had seen to that. Obi was glad to be rid of that ship.

“Okay,” said Asha. “I’m not altogether sure how this works, but I did some research—”

“Of course.”

She ignored him. “I did some research, and I know this sounds crazy, but you’re just supposed to walk in the direction that you feel like walking in, and you’ll just… end up where you’re supposed to be.”

Obi squinted at her. “Are you sure?”

He had heard about the magic of the space station, but he’d never really thought it about it that hard. Maybe he was more of a sceptic than he’d thought.

Asha must’ve seen the expression on his face. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s the way it’s done, apparently. I was up until late going through different forums and sub-threads on how it works. Some people just throw the word ‘magic’ at it and hope it sticks, others think it’s a blend of both magic and engineering, and this one guy is convinced they put hallucinogens in the air.”

Obi blinked. “What do you think?”

“Honestly? I have no idea.” She looked vaguely embarrassed. “I’m just going to try not to think about it and walk wherever my feet take me.”

“And if they don’t take you—us—to a ship headed towards A’lkari?”

“Then I’ll find a map and walk wherever that tells me I have to go to find one.” She nodded. “It wouldn’t make any sense for it be anywhere but the Consortium headquarters, for either of us, really. My sister is there, and what else could it be but fate that led me to finding out about her only a month before all chance of me rescuing her would be taken away? And you… well, you don’t even _have_ a future if you don’t get this cure so—” Her eyes widened, “Oh stars, I’m so sorry, that was mean. I didn’t mean to be so indifferent, I just—”

“It’s true.” And it was. That didn’t mean it wasn’t painful. But it also wasn’t Asha’s fault. He smiled at her. “It’s okay, don’t worry.” Offering his arm to her, he gestured ahead.

“Shall we?” he asked.

“I suppose we shall.”

They both started walking in opposite directions. 

 

***

 

Fifteen minutes later they were both sitting silently on the side of the curb, heads in their hands, somber expressions on their faces. Obi wasn’t sure he even knew what this meant.

“What does this even mean?” Asha asked. He smiled fondly, she was a girl after his own heart, honestly.

“I guess… I think—maybe it means that one of us isn’t destined for what we thought. Either, you’re not supposed to save your sister, or I’m not supposed to be cured.” Obi’s heart sank even further. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling Obi something he should’ve figured out a long time ago: he wasn’t supposed to survive.

Asha patted his knee. “Obi, this doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it does.” Her voice was calm, reasonable. Logic radiated from her like a cool breeze. “If you hadn’t felt the need to walk anywhere at all, then you would have cause to be concerned. But you felt it. You do have a destiny, and no one’s destiny is nothing. There’s something waiting for you out there, you just have to choose whether you want it or not.”

Obi chewed his thumbnail. It was true that he had felt the need to walk, to move, to travel somewhere without even knowing his destination. His feet had moved of their own accord, and yet…

“I need this cure, Asha. I need it.” He looked her in the eye. “I need it if I’m ever going to live the only life I’ve ever wanted, with only person I’ve ever wanted to live it with.”

“Oh yes, the mysterious George.” She smiled sideways at him. “Don’t think you’re going to get away without telling me about him,” she poked his ribs, “in _detail_.”

He smiled. “You know, I do believe I have somewhere very important that I need to be right now, If you would just—”

“Oh, you’re not getting away from me that easily, Amadi.” She replied. “Look, I know you think you’re doomed to suffer in sad and stoic silence for all of eternity, but I’m here for you.” She managed to say all this while still looking slightly angry, but Obi remembered the knee pat from earlier. He got the feeling that comfort had never really been Asha’s strong point, but she soldiered on. “If you need someone to talk to about, you know, _feelings_ and stuff, I’ll be here to listen. I can’t guarantee the quality of my advice, but I’ll try my hardest.” She smiled her small smile, and Obi felt a rush of affection. “When we first met, you told me that you weren’t okay. You told me that you suspected I wasn’t either. You had just saved my life. Later that day, we shook hands and I realized that I had… a friend, for the first time in my whole life,” she shook her head, “and I can’t call myself your friend if I let you suffer in silence.”

“I—wow. Thank you. That means a lot.”

Asha shrugged. “It’s just the truth. Anyway, I know you would do the same thing for me.”

Obi knew immediately that he would.

Friendship. The word felt significantly less foreign than it had a mere week before.

Obi looked around. His heart full dangerously full. When he felt like this he couldn’t sit still. Jumping to his feet, he offered his hands to Asha. She rolled her eyes and stood by herself. He hadn’t expected anything less.

Obi felt a wave of possibility surge in his chest. Suddenly, the fact that his destiny wasn’t what he had expected felt more like opportunity than the removal of one. He could _choose_ his destiny, if he wanted.

It was a feeling he could get used to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty

[planet: none]  +   [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

There were stalls for everything at the port. Tonics for feathers and fur sat next to scrubs for scales and talons and beaks. A shop that traded exclusively in what looked like mud seemed to be very popular with an amphibious looking species whose three webbed fingers and large, wet looking eyes reminded Asha of an old Earthen animal she had once seen a picture of. The thing—sentient, _sentient_ —blinked moistly at her and then Obi, skin rippling and shifting in colour from a dark, earthy green to a colder, more hostile blue. _Stay away._ She flushed and lowered her eyes. For a moment she had forgotten what she was, and what Obi appeared to be. Inferior, lesser, Human.

“Thief.”

The whisperer was whisked away by the crowds, but the sentiment remained. Asha’s cheeks burned again at the reminder of what everyone else thought of her. Humans were thieving scum, not to be trusted. Turn your back and it might be _your_ planet, next. _And if they could snatch a whole planet then why not a trinket?_ Asha thought furiously. _Why not hack the digits right out of their accounts or slip the jewelry off their arrogantly unprotected wrists? Why not burn the whole fucking place to the ground and kick the ashes to the curb and throw my head back and laugh?_

Because they would slam her back into jail without a second thought; because she was so much more than her circumstances; because it would prove them right.

Standing up, Asha willed herself to calm down. She was on Nautikos. Wasn’t this the place where you could want anything? Dream anything? _Be_ anything?

“ _Hey, you!_ ”

The shout was furious and accusing. Asha and Obi whipped around to find an insect like sentient in uniform bearing down on them, compound eyes bulging and orange-tinted. A badge on his chest flashed in the bright light. _Police_.

“Shit.”

“I think that gentlemen with the striking eyes is talking to you,” Obi said.

“He’s talking to _both of us_ , idiot,” Asha hissed. “Last time I checked you look about as Human as I do, and in case you’d forgotten, we aren’t really welcome, well, anywhere.”

“So, we run?” he replied, eyeing the police detail that was now only fifty meters away.

“So, we run,” Asha confirmed, grabbing his collar and yanking him behind her as she barreled down the thoroughfare.

 

They sped past pedestrians, shoving their way through the crowds, and jumping over small pets as the police officer chased them through the station. Asha felt the adrenaline kicking her heart into gear, moving her legs faster, pushing the air through her lungs and out again. Her hand shot out to grab the support strut of a nearby gazebo, using to it to swing around the corner without losing momentum. She hurled herself into a nearby alley, followed by a cursing Obi in a tangle of limbs. She could hear the police officer radioing for backup several meters behind them. They needed to lose him, and fast.

“Hurry!” she said, moving towards the end of the alley.

“Believe me, I’m hurrying.”

“If we run head on into the main thoroughfare we’ll be spotted within seconds, we need to blend in, or—or emerge somewhere unexpected! It’s the only way to lose them.”

“Fine, how?”

“Follow me.”

Asha had spotted the slimy maintenance rungs bolted onto the side of the building as soon as they’d entered the alley. She ran towards them now, pointing upwards.

“No one ever looks up, trust me.”

Grabbing the first rung she began to climb. The metal was slippery, made even more treacherous by her sweaty hands and aching muscles. Shouts echoed from the mouth of the alley beneath them.

“Go, go, go!” Obi hissed. “There’s more of them, and they’ve got blasters!”   

Asha’s heart plummeted further. They could shoot on sight if they wanted, with no repercussions. Would save a lot of paperwork, too. Nausea began to rise in her throat.

With shaking hands, she pulled herself over the lip of the building’s roof and collapsed on top of it.

Obi’s hands appeared, then his face, then he was jerking forward, eyes wide, shouting in alarm as laser fire blasted into the wall below him.

Asha scrambled up, hauling him over the ledge with fevered urgency.

“Are you hit? Did they get you?”

His face was ashen, eyes blinking slowly. _He’s in shock,_ she thought, _what-do-I-do-what-do-I-what-do-I—_

A clawed, insectile hand hooked its way over the top of the building, followed by two probing antennae and huge orange eyes. Asha didn’t think. Shoving Obi behind her, she reached into her bag and brought out the hackjob rifle she’d welded together on the prison ship.

 _It’s them or us_ , she thought, all in a rush. _Always has been, always will_. Somewhere inside herself she recognized the wrongness of this mindset, but she was too scared to care, and fear has such a knack for distilling years of hatred into weapon-friendly feelings. At the last minute, she clicked the gun to stun.

The shots, when they came, were bright and sizzling and pushed the officer back over the edge in a curl of a smoke.

Obi staggered up behind her, noticeably limping, charred holes in his trousers.

“Asha…”

“I had to. I—”

“It’s okay. He would have killed us, wouldn’t he? We’re not citizens so it would have been legal. Like putting a droid out of commission or wiping an AI’s memory bank. We would have been dead— _dead_ —and no one would have cared. God,” he breathed, “I forget how fucked up this is sometimes.”

Asha nodded, her hands shaking. Not with remorse, or guilt, or even fear, at this point. She was shaking with an anger so deeply rooted in her that it never disappeared, not really, and all she could think was that surely, _surely_ , if you tell a person they’re worthless until you both believe it, if you hit a person until they’re down and _keep_ hitting them, then there’s no universe in which you can blame them for punching back.

 “Um,” said a voice, “I’m going to pretend I did not see that and offer you an escape route anyway. How does that sound?”

Asha and Obi whirled around, trying to find the source of the voice. The rooftop was still empty.

“Over here!”

They looked left, at the side of the adjacent building that rose up next to theirs, jetting a few more stories up, so that it’s roof was ten meters or so above them.

“Window on the left. Hurry, I can see into the alley from here and there are more of them than before. If they start to climb and you’re not gone by the time they get here you’re done for.”

Asha and Obi craned their necks, trying to see into the window, but the glass was treated—all they could see were their own reflections staring back at them.

“I’m not going to offer again.”

Asha looked at Obi. He shrugged, eyebrows scrunched in resignation because _what other choice do we have?_

The sound of scuttling legs on metal ladder rungs made the choice for them. Asha pushed Obi ahead, linking her fingers together and giving him a boost up the side of the building. The person on the other side of the glass must have grabbed him because Asha felt the weight lessen significantly, and then Obi was clambering through the gap between the window and its sill. His hurt leg stuck out, unusable for the pain, she assumed. Worry stabbed at her chest. The scuttling sound was growing closer.

“Quickly!” Obi whispered. “Come on Asha.”

She took a run up and leaped onto the highest windowsill she could reach. Her elbows smashed into the wall as she reached her arms up, _up_ , her heart thudding to a fierce crescendo in her chest as she scrabbled against the cool, purchaseless metal.

“Help,” she groaned, searching for a hand hold, for anything to haul her up and away from the danger scuttling up the wall beneath her.

A hand shot out of the window, and maybe it was a trick of the light, the way it looked, but Asha didn’t have time to think. She just grasped and pulled and suddenly she was being hauled through the window and into a deserted office space and she couldn’t think, could barely _see_ because the panic was setting in and she could taste blood, and Obi’s voice was telling her to breathe, but the funny thing was that she _couldn’t,_ and _when was the last time I ate_ —

Her faculties were shutting down as her brain forced a reboot of her systems. Her hands buzzed, fuzzy numbness spreading up her spine and translating into a darkness that eventually swallowed her whole.

Her head hit the floor with a resounding _crack_. She didn’t feel it.

 

***

Someone was shaking her. Obi. Obi was shaking her.

“Where did she get that?”

“That is the fifth time you’ve asked me. How the fuck am I supposed to know where she got a bloody necklace from? Why do you even care?

“I don’t know, aren’t you friends?”

“Well, yeah but—”

“She’s waking up!”

“Hey, Asha. Asha?”

Someone was shaking her. Obi. Obi was shaking her.

“Here,” he said gently, “drink this. It’s water, you’re probably dehydrated.”

Gingerly, Asha sat up, head foggy, and accepted the bottle.

“Where are we?” she remembered running, _no,_ being chased, remembered climbing, palms slippery with sweat, and Obi’s face, and gunfire, and the pressured release of a trigger being pulled—

“Oh god.”

“It’s okay, we’re safe now, we’re…” he trailed off, and turned around. “Where are we?”

“Abandoned offices,” said a voice—a male voice—and Asha jumped. She’d forgotten they had company.

“Everyone’s moving to the more developed part of the station. This is what’s left.”

He sounded young. Didn’t sound hostile, but you could never tell from a voice.

Asha set down the bottle of water, pushed herself to her knees and turned around.

The boy was young-looking like she’d guessed. Maybe her age or a bit older. He wore simple black pants, a white shirt, and a sturdy looking jacket with colorful shapes all over it, sewed on with different colour threads. The shapes had words and pictures on them, and some looked newer than others—one on his arm featured two images stitched onto a red background; two hands, one in a fist, the other palm upwards. Asha smiled.

He was also green. Not dark, leafy green, like the plants that grew oasis side back home, or even dry green like desert grass. He was green in the way a bird’s egg is a delicate, speckled blue. Lovely, but very different to anything she was used to. It was an unassuming, quiet color that seemed too simple for its surroundings. The sharp quirk of the boy’s eyebrow told her he was anything _but_ simple. His skin looked very soft, unlike his hair, which was a shock of tousled black. Long, soot coloured lashes framed eyes as lushly green as the broad leaves of rainforests Asha could only have glimpsed in her dreams. His nose was quite crooked.

Prejudice was something Asha had struggled with her whole life. She was a victim of it and couldn’t call herself a citizen because of it. The alien guards back home had called them insects and pests and treated them like animals, using numbers instead of names and thoughtless violence to corral them as if they hadn’t known humanity was capable of the level of thought it would take to understand. This prejudice had seeped into Asha’s skin and, nourished by her anger, had formed a prejudice of her own: anyone who wasn’t Human sought to subjugate her and was therefore an enemy and should be treated as such.

It was for this reason—as she looked at the boy standing in front of her—that three warring instincts battled for dominance inside her heart. One said, _this person is not to be trusted. They will do to you what the others did—what has been done to you your whole life. Run._ The other said, _beautiful things should be worshipped_ , _protected,_ and _Divine Might is Divine Right. Stay_. The last said, simply, _kneel_. This one was the hardest to refuse. Her legs trembled.

 “You’re welcome,” the boy said into the silence.

Asha blinked.

Obi stepped forward, “Thank you,” he said earnestly. “We know you didn’t have to help us. If there’s anything we can do…”

The boy waved a hand. “Nah, it’s cool. Anything to fuck with those idiots—they’ve been giving me hell since I could walk.”

“You live here?” Asha asked.

The boy grinned mischievously, “Nautikos born and bred, _sansi_.”

Asha registered several things in the few seconds he spoke for. First of all, the lag between his mouth moving and his voice reaching Asha’s ears; he wasn’t speaking the Universal Dialect, and the language he was speaking was so obscure that the last word hadn’t even been translatable. Secondly, when he spoke, he revealed slightly serrated canines that were extremely pointy and sort of made him look like a bat. It should have been highly intimidating. Asha found it…well, that didn’t matter. Lastly, his hair. Or, what his hair had been hiding until he shifted slightly and something green glinted dully between strands of silky black. Two small horns poked out of his head. They were smooth and looked as though they might have the same texture and solidity of human bones. His eyelashes really were very long.

“Oh,” she said.

His smile widened.

“So, two Humans on Nautikos. I won’t say I’ve never seen anything like it ‘cause I have, but this is a little far from home, no?”

Asha narrowed her eyes.

“We’re headed to A’lkari. On a rescue mission.”

The boy looked at her, blinking. Then he doubled over and began to laugh.

“Are you—is that—oh stars, please tell me you’re joking? That’s funny, that’s real fucking funny. Ah, good one.” He wiped his eyes theatrically. “It’s cool, I get it. You don’t have to tell me.”

Asha frowned.

“I wasn’t joking.”

The boy eyed them, skepticism written all over his face. “Are you guys, crazy? Because if you’re nutjobs or, psychotic, or just plain stupid, tell me now and we can amicably part ways before things start to get messy.”

“Not crazy,” Obi said. “Just desperate.”

“The Emperor kidnapped my sister,” Asha blurted out. “I’m going to get her back. I need—It’s the right thing to do, so I’m going to do it. You can either help us, or get out of our way. Your call.”

“Oh,” said the boy. “See, that I can understand.” He walked forward and stuck out a hand. “Xavior So Bakov, at your service. And, seeing as I did already help you—again, you’re welcome—I can’t give up on you now. It would be like skipping out on an investment; not something I like to do.”

Obi frowned.

“Seriously?” he said. “You want to help us?”

“Sure,” Xavior said. “Don’t get me wrong, my motivations are purely selfish, but I’ll explain that later.” He looked at Asha. “Coincidentally, where did you get that pendant from?”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” groaned Obi.

Asha frowned. “My mother gave it to me. It was my father’s.”

“Ay, _crajio_ , seh mana,” he said, making a sign with his hand, and sighing deeply. “There’s someone I think you should meet.”

 

***

 

After bandaging Obi’s leg, Xavior led them over the rooftops, jumping through windows and walking through sky gardens like he owned the place, pointing out landmarks and decent food places like he hadn’t just witnessed Asha shoot a police officer off a roof with a stolen gun. His confidence and easy small talk had set Obi at ease, but Asha was significantly warier. Until he explained his motivation, she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. And who was this ‘someone’ he wanted them to meet? What did her pendant have to do with it?

“So, I was like, standing there, no pants, no excuses, ready to get my sorry ass _handed_ to me by her father, when suddenly—oh! Here we are.”

Xavior stopped and leaned over the side of the building, feeling around under the lip of the roof for a few moments before tugging something sharply and scrambling backwards. A ladder sprung out, folding over the top of the roof, and dangling over the side, leading down to street level.

“Ladies first,” Xavior gestured.

“Go on, then,” she replied. “I don’t have all day.”

“Hah! Okay, fair.”

They reached the bottom without incident and merged seamlessly into the flow of pedestrians, heads low, walking quickly.

Ahead of them gleamed the newly developed section of the station, a spire-like tower rising upwards at the center. ‘Nautikos Industries’ was emblazoned up the side in silver letters.  Xavior led them through the streets, weaving through crowds of corporate looking businesspeople, some carrying briefcases, others talking into multiple earpieces at once. Most of them saw Xavior and smiled, waving in recognition. There were other reactions, too.

“Did that person just bow at you?”

“Not sure if you can physically bow ‘at’ someone, but yeah. I’m kind of a big deal, don’t pay much attention to it.”

“Kind of a big deal… sorry, am I missing something?”

But Xavior powered ahead, and _of course_ , Asha thought, _of_ _course_ he was leading them towards the spire-like tower she had glimpsed earlier. He was probably going to hand them in for a reward. Maybe that’s why he was such a big deal; he was a famous bounty hunter who rounded up strays and pocketed the profit.

“Obi—”

“I know. This feels like a trap.”

“Should we run?”

“I don’t know. I really thought he was on our side, but now…”

Asha bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood.

“Are you guys coming in?” Xavior stood at the building’s revolving glass doors, gesturing towards the expensive looking lobby inside. Asha could see potted plants. She walked swiftly towards him, pulling her rifle out of her bag and jamming it under his chin. She heard Obi’s strangled cry of shock and tried not to feel guilty.

“What do you want from us?” she asked.

Xavior looked remarkably calm for someone with a gun in their face.

“Last time I checked it was you who needed my help, _sansi_.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Can’t help it if it’s true.”

So, it was a nickname. He was probably calling her thief, just like everyone else.

_Can’t help it if it’s true._

Yeah, that made sense. She pressed the rifle harder. “What’s in the building? Who is it your introducing us to?”

Xavior’s eyes widened in alarm, focused on something over her shoulder. His mouth opened in protest, but then there was a shadow falling over his face, and Obi was shouting a warning, and then someone had hit her over the head with something incredibly heavy, and she was passing out for the second time in as many hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Four

[planet: none]  + [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

A soft light woke Asha from her sleep. Warm air blew softly across her face. She was comfortable. She felt safe, rested—

Her eyes flew open as she sat bolt upright, her heart racing. Exhaustion blurred the room into a haze, but she rubbed her eyes with her hands and blinked until her vision cleared. The room was huge, carpeted in a thick cream that looked like it cost more than her indenture to the Consortium. She was sitting on one of the low couches spread around the perimeter of the room with a soft blanket draped over her. Her throat felt raw. There was a cool looking glass of water by her right hand. She eyed it suspiciously. Condensation slid down the side. _No way_ was she drinking it. The room was incredibly well lit; there were three skylights, two windows, and one door. The skylights were too high up and too small to fit a body through, so she wouldn’t be leaving via those. The windows were made of a single panel of opaque glass, but as she turned to face them, a soft _click_ sounded and they turned suddenly transparent. The view beyond them crushed her remaining hopes of escape. Nautikos was spread out below her… thousands of platforms and buildings, millions of hopeful sentients all walking towards their destinies, the size of sand ants from this high up. The tower was so high that she could see the curvature of the horizon. Vertigo threatened. Closing her eyes, she turned away from the window. The height of the building left the door as her only means of escape. Assuming her kidnappers were vaguely competent, she could probably count on it being locked. Maybe she had something in a pocket that she could use to pick it, a pin or—

“Ah, you’re awake,” said a voice. Asha whipped her head around. Xavior was standing next to the window. She must have missed him when she had looked before. That wasn’t like her. _What had happened?_

“What is this?” she asked.

Looking slightly taken aback, he shook his head, “Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you or anything, I promise.”

Asha scoffed, and realized she was scowling at him. _Good_.

“Fine, don’t believe me,” he said. “I don’t really care.” Folding his arms across his chest he lent casually on the doorframe. “As for what this is,” he spread his arms, and Asha knew he was mocking her. “Well, you’re lucky enough to have been brought to the Station Master’s quarters.”

Asha’s mouth fell open.

Xavior smirked. “He wants to talk to you.”                                                                                         

“He wants to talk to me?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

Asha glared at him, “Well, good,” she blustered. “Because I want to talk to him, too. Starting with why he has such a little fucking _psycho_ on his payroll,” she jabbed a finger at him. “You said you were going to _help_ us. You knocked me out!”

“That was not me—"

“Where’s Obi?” she interrupted. “And where are my shoes? I’m leaving.”

“I’m sorry,” Xavior said, and weirdly enough, he looked it, too. “But I can’t let you leave.”

Asha gaped at him. “Let me? You’re not going to ‘let me’ do anything. “I’m leaving, and you can’t stop me.” Her boots had been placed by an irritatingly tiny potted plant, and she grabbed them, tugging them on. “Also, if you were the one who took off my boots, then you should know, that’s really creepy, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“You’re crazy, _sansi,_ ” said Xavior. “And it wasn’t me, it was Tosìn, so… invalid point.”

“Tosìn?” Asha’s heart stuttered. _That name…_ It had to be a coincidence.

Asha looked closer at the pictures on the walls.

They were of various scenes, a crowd of sentients in suits, skyscapes shots of the station. A Human man and Xavior, the same man shaking hands with various sentients in suits. She strode over to the last photo to get a better look. He had a wide smile, and a strange scar—

 She froze. _Surely_ not. Her heart stuttered. _That face. That scar. That name._ This couldn’t be—there was no way, it didn’t—

“Who is that man?” she asked, voice low.

Xavior frowned. “Who?”

“The man in the pictures _. Who is he_?” 

“ _Oh_ , that’s the boss man, the top dog, CEO of Nautikos Inudstries.”

Asha looked at him blankly

“Have you been living under a rock? That’s Tosìn Dhaka. How do you not—"

“Shut up.”

“But you _just_ asked me—”

“ _Shut up_.” It was getting harder to breathe, the air felt thick, like she was trying to breathe syrup instead of oxygen. Her vision swam.

“Asha, are you okay?”

 _Don’t say my name_ , she said. But she might have thought it, she couldn’t be sure. Her heart beat thudded slowly in her ears.

“…Asha?”

The floor looked like it was moving. She was going to be sick.

Suddenly, footsteps. Then, strong arms wrapped around her, lifting her off the floor. Her whole body tensed up, her throat closing in panic. She felt caged in, surrounded, she needed air—

“It’s okay, my love. It’s okay, I’ve got you. Tosìn’s got you.”

A name swam through the fog of her panicked mind. Tosìn Dhaka.

 _Dhaka_.

Asha looked upwards. A face she had only seen in photographs stared back at her. There were more creases, more lines, but the scar was the same as ever; thin and raised, shiny on his deep brown skin, bisecting his entire face. It wicked up from his chin to slice through his lips, nose and cut between his eyebrows, disappearing into his hairline. It was precise, yet jagged and looked as though it had been stitched shut by hand. It threw off the balance of his face and was impossible to ignore. He still had perfect teeth.

Her mother’s voice rang through her memory like the tolling of a bell. _Your father was gorgeous. Gorgeous dark skin, gorgeous dark hair. Gorgeous teeth. Very straight. And his eyes. Oh, I used to get lost in them_. She’d kept a picture of him wedged between her bed and the doorframe and only brought it out on birthdays _._

 “You’re the Station Master, you—you’re my…” she gasped, fighting for breath. It didn’t make any sense.

“Hush, little one. You need to calm down. Then we’ll talk.”

“Put me _down_.”

She wriggled out of his grasp, stumbling to the ground. Her head was throbbing, but her breathing was already coming easier. She sank into the mattress she had woken up on. Her lungs ached, and her throat felt raw. She hadn’t panicked like that since… since…

“Drink your water, Asha,” Tosìn—her father— _Tosìn_ , said.

She glared in response.

“I know you’re angry at me for… for not being around.” He offered her a small smile. “I know you’re confused and disorientated. Hell, if you’re anything like me, I know you’re mad at me for being the one to save you when you’ve done fine without me all these years. Just listen to what I have to say. I’m not a bad guy, you have to understand that.” Asha resisted the urge to spit in his face. “You’ve only heard one side of the story for so long, don’t you think it’s time you heard my version of events?” he paused. “I can scarcely believe you’re here. When Xavior brought you to me after seeing your pendant, I have to admit I was skeptical. But we ran a DNA test in the night and—”

“You took samples of my DNA without asking me?”

Asha picked up her water glass and threw it at his head. He barely dodged it. The glass smashed against the far wall, water running rivulets down the glass.

“Very mature,” muttered Xavior, as he stalked over to pick up the pieces.

She scrambled away from her father, rage brimming inside her chest.

“You had me _knocked out_ , you separated me from my friend—whose whereabouts you still haven’t revealed to me, by the way—told me I’m as good as prisoner, and now you’re admitting to taking my blood in the night and using it to _run tests_!”

Her hands where shaking. She had had a taste of freedom, of self-ownership, had had exclusive control over her own body. Her own life. These would never be things she would take for granted, and so to have these newfound rights violated so extremely was something she would not—could not—stand for.

“Get away from me.”

“Asha, please—"

She threw up her hand in a gesture that suggested something so outlandishly offensive about her father’s sexual proclivities that both Xavior and her father blushed to the roots of their hair and turned away, sputtering in indignation.

Allowing herself a single, cruel victorious smile, she turned her back on Xavior and her father.

“What will it take for you to hear me out, Asha?” her father asked. She noted the desperation in his voice. Noted the way she didn’t care.

“Bring me my friend. Then I’ll think about talking.”

“Alright,” he conceded. “But please, after that, I just want a chance to explain.”

 

***

 

 

“I say we hear him out.”

“Traitor.”

Obi and Asha were lying on the floor, feet facing opposite directions, heads side by side.

“Think about it,” he said. “You don’t have to forgive him or anything, just listen to what he has to say, nod a bit, smile a bit, maybe cry if you can manage it, and then guilt trip the bastard into giving us a ton of supplies before we sneak out in the night, never to return. Like, _sayonara_ , dipshit, I hope you have a terrible life.”

Asha nodded. “I like the way you think.”

“It is a gift and a burden.”

She smiled.

“Seriously, though. What if he actually, I don’t know, says something right? Like, what if he apologises and explains and it makes sense and I _want_ to forgive him? What then?”

Obi propped himself up on his arm, head resting on his palm and looked down at her.

“You know how badly I would kill for a chance like that?”

She winced, “Oh sorry, I—”

“No, it’s fine, it’s just… look. If I had my dad, sitting in front me, ready to apologise and repent and all that other stuff, I’d at least hear what he had to say. And if it was all good stuff?” he shook his head. “I’m not saying you forgive him and it’s all rainbows and good times forever after that, but I’m saying that you may as well give it a chance. Also… we stand to gain a lot from this, potentially. So, if anything, do it for yourself. Use him to increase the chance you have of surviving all this.”

She nodded.

“Also, Asha, I know this can’t be easy for you. You had never met your father and now you’re staring him in the face, and he owns the biggest space station this side of, well, everything, and suddenly he wants to help you when all he’s done all your life is anything but...” he paused. “I’m here if you need to talk. Or scream. And I would say ‘or hit something’ but honestly? I’d rather you didn’t.”

Asha closed her eyes. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to forgive him. It’s okay if you do. No one’s going to judge you. Do what feels right for _you_.”

“I don’t _know_ what feel right for me.”

“That’s okay. We can figure it out.”

She sat up and hugged him.

“You give good advice.”

“Yeah, I know. If only I was just as talented at following it.”

“Hm.”

“Hm, indeed. Now go get us a privately chartered ship from the billionaire waiting outside.”

Asha elbowed him.

 “Oh sorry, I meant to say, ‘go forth and heal your broken relationship with the father who abandoned you before birth.’”

This time, she kicked him in the shin.

“ _Ow_ , too harsh?”

“Get lost, Amadi.”

***

 

Half an hour later, Asha, Xavior and her father were all seated around a large rectangular table inside a kitchen that Asha could only describe begrudgingly as cozy, eating food she had no problem describing as insipidly bland and awful.

“This is disgusting,” she said.

Xavior snorted, then clamped his mouth shut. Tosìn glared at both of them.

“No, really,” she continued, “this tastes like sand. Except sand has a nicer texture, or at least… a texture.” She took another mouthful and grimaced. “What did you put in this? It tastes like blended winbax rocks.”

“Clearly you learned your manners from your mother.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t cooked her _this_ when you first met, she wouldn’t have run away as soon as physically possible.”

“I did _not_ —”

“ _Guys_.” It was Xavior, he was looking at both of them, clearly exasperated. “Why don’t you talk about what you both know you _should_ talk about, instead of bickering and insulting your way around the subject? This is giving me a headache.”

Asha glared at him. _Why was he even here?_

“Why are you even here?” she said. He scowled in reply and blushed slightly. Embarrassed _. Good_ , she thought. Then she turned to glare at her father, but he looked so sad, and so lost, that she cast her eyes downwards and picked at the tablecloth instead. 

“Asha?” asked her father.

“What.”

“I’m sorry.”

The apology flew like an arrow to her heart, tearing open scar tissue and wounding her all over again. _I had gotten over this_ , she wanted to scream.

_I had moved on._

“It’s too late for apologies,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Just tell me what happened with my mother. Why did you abandon us? Why did you let her end up on Gahraan of all places?”

Tosìn’s eyebrows were drawn, his mouth turned down. His scar made his sadness lopsided. A misaligned mask; a marionette with its strings cut. Asha tried to care. Couldn’t.

“Your mother arrived on Nautikos for the first time the same night that I did. We struck up a conversation as we waited to get on to the ship that would deliver us to our destinies, and when we talked...” he trailed off, his smile soft and his eyes far away. “I felt really—truly—alive for the first time in my life.” He sighed. “She asked me if I wanted to go on an adventure. I told her I would go anywhere as long as she was there, too. That was the day I gave her my pendant. I told her to keep it, said it would protect her. Said that she would always be able to call me for help as long as she had it, and as long as she wished hard enough, because that’s what the person who gave it to me said. It seems that she passed it onto you.”

Xavior rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Asha wondered again at their relationship. Father and son? Student and mentor? She couldn’t tell.

“She had found a way to trick the magic that allows the ships to select their passengers.” Tosìn continued. “We got on a train that took us to an underwater city. We came back before long. Then we stowed away on a ship which dropped us on a colonized moon. We came back. We visited exoplanets made of crystals and lived in a palace that was so huge it could orbit a star at just under the speed of sound without breaking apart. We came back.” Tosìn smiled sadly at her. There was something resigned about his gaze. “Do you see? I would have been more than happy to live in any one of those places as long as she was with me. But she was restless. One of the last true wandering souls.” Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he shook his head. “One day I woke up—we were visiting a small planet in, well, in the middle of nowhere—and she wasn’t there. She left a note telling me that she had gone so that I would finally be free to find the destiny I was supposed to. I’ve been waiting here for her to come back to me for years.” Asha was silent.

Tosìn stood and collected their bowls. Making his way over to the sink he sighed

“She must have left that day because she was pregnant and didn’t want me to know.”

Asha didn’t know what to say. They had been in love, that much was obvious. Her father was… still in love?

When she had been younger she would have given anything for this. Meeting her father and hearing his explanation for why he had left them was a particularly tragic recurring daydream she’d had for years. To find out that it was her mother who had left was shocking. Asha didn’t know how to feel. Part of her was angry, as part of her always was: hadn’t her mother considered what the effect might have been on Asha, growing up without a father? She had deprived her of that choice. Though, if Asha knew Anila, there was a very good reason for it. Asha didn’t know whether she could trust this man. But he was her father. Surely, he had no reason to hurt her?

 “So, what did you do?” she asked.

“I waited.” He said simply. “I waited and I waited and I _waited_ , and somewhere along the way, the station wound up in my care. The old Station Master saved my life. He had no reason to take a chance on me. I mean, come on, Humans aren’t even citizens. But he thought I could do it, and I wasn’t convinced that I _couldn’t_ , so I became his apprentice. For ten years. My apprenticeship was actually supposed to last for forty or so, but he died. Nearly broke me, but suddenly I was solely in charge of the largest Space Station for several quadrants and had no idea how to fix its million and one problems. I knew that donations were dwindling to a detrimental level, that we could survive maybe another decade if we were lucky. I had to turn the NSS from a charity into a business or face closure. It wasn’t really a choice. I contacted investors, put prices on tickets, made space for advertising and enlarged the commercial district. That was five years ago. Now, Nautikos is more prosperous than it has ever been—we have increased the destinations on offer by three hundred percent, and revenue is at a record high. We have remodeled and renovated three entire sectors, and plan to have the whole station self-sufficient in twenty years’ time. How can you fault me for that?”

She couldn’t.

But she could try. “You have put a price on people’s destiny. A price a lot of people can’t afford. That’s not right. That’s systematic oppression. And, as for my mother, you could have _tried_ to find her. You have so many resources at your disposal now. Don’t try and tell me it would have been impossible. You could have found us and you could have saved us. You escaped the system. You should be a slave too, but somehow you escaped, and you could have done the same thing for us. I’ve lived my whole life in service to an Emperor who pretends to think I’m no better than an animal so that he has a permanent work force at his disposal.”

Tosìn winced.

“Asha…” he sighed. “It really was impossible for me to find you. The Consortium does not hand out information about its indentures for free, and to some degree, there _was_ a selfish motivation behind not seeking you out. Your mother left me. Yes, I was in love with her, but I was still angry. I was angry for years. I still am. But by the time that anger cleared, I’d made a life for myself, I’d risen above my circumstances and I’d taken on a new apprentice.” He gestured to Xavior, who smiled and winked at her. “I didn’t even know if you _wanted_ to be found, and honestly, Gahraan was the last place I’d expect her to take you. It doesn’t make any sense. When I met her, she said that that was the place she’d _escaped from_. Probably just another thing she lied about.” His shoulders slumped.

Asha felt a twinge of sympathy. Although, Anila had never said she had been on Gahraan when Aziza was taken from her, and so perhaps it was less of a lie and just another missing piece of the puzzle. Still, the portrait Tosìn was painting of her mother wasn’t exactly pleasant.

A shrill ringing sound interrupted them. It was coming from a small comms device attached to Tosìn’s hip. He picked it up and listened to the shrill voice on the other side before frowning in annoyance and standing.

“Someone’s wandered down into a restricted part of the station. I have to go check surveillance, assess the threat, et cetera. I’ll be right back. Unless,” he paused, looking at Asha. “Unless you want to come?”

_And give up unrestricted access to your private quarters for an hour or so? Not likely._

“I’m feeling tired, actually, and I want to talk to my friend. I think I’ll stay here.”

Tosìn looked at her searchingly for a few moments.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course that’s okay.” He turned to Xavior. “Make sure they have everything they need.”

The door closed soundlessly behind him.

“So,” Asha said, eyes narrowed. “You gonna apologise for knocking me out?”

“Nope,” Xavior replied, “because it wasn’t me. H’nati—that’s one of the security guards—he has a soft spot for me, so when he saw you pull a gun, he was like, kill mode activated, she’s going _down_ , and then he knocked you out. So, like I said. Not my fault. He told me he feels bad about it, if that’s any consolation.”

“It isn’t.”

Xavior’s eyes glittered with humor. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, it’s just that you’ve been reacting to everything with this… this wide-eyed look that’s equal parts confusion and wonder, like you’re—" he paused, gesticulating wildly, as though he could snatch the words out of the air if they would only _hold still,_ “—a kid patched into a HighRes sim for the first time _ever_. But you’re also so cynical and jaded, and I don’t get it. Like, I know you’re Human, that’s obvious, so you’ve probably never left that planet where you all live, which I guess is why everything is foreign to you, but you act like nothing phases you, even though everyone can kind of tell it does because of that, y’know, kid-patched-in-to-a-sim-for-the-first-time look. Which reminds me of this video I saw, yesterday? I think it was yesterday, where this really old, like _ancient_ , Hiskath lady was put into a homeworld sim, you know because their planet was destroyed, and she started crying and ah, it was just—” he smiled. “It was just _nice_ , you know. Like aw, technology being used for the greater good instead of war-mongering capitalist bullshit,” he paused. “I forgot what I was saying.”

Asha blinked. “Do you ever shut up?”

She recognized the words as too blunt as soon as they left her mouth, but it wasn’t like she could take them back, and his smug face was asking for it.

“Woah, did you ever learn manners?”

“Sorry, did _I_? You’re the one who tricked me into coming here!”

“Oh, sorry I _tricked_ you,” he said rolling his eyes, “that must have been incredibly traumatic. At least I didn’t interrogate you at gunpoint. _Oh, wait_ —"

The door hissed open.

“Everything alright in here?” It was Obi.

Xavior and Asha glared at each other.

“Fine,” she gritted out. “Everything’s fine.”

“Okay…” he replied. “Well I was going to go on a covert mission into the station for snacks, if you wanted anything?”

Xavior stood abruptly. “I, uh, can’t let you leave.”

Obi looked him up and down. “Like hell you can’t,” he replied, obviously unimpressed. Asha repressed a victorious grin and settled for looking haughtily superior.

Xavior stood firm. “It’s just that, if you leave, you might get arrested, which would be bad for everybody. Also, Tosìn will lock me out of the workshop for a week if he finds out, which would suck, and be bad for me.”

Obi looked at Asha, eyebrow raised.

She rolled her eyes back at him, like _I know, just roll with it_.

“Fine,” Obi said—Xavior visibly deflated in relief—"but I’m going to need to get those snacks from somewhere. I’m craving those, uh, what are they called? Rock Kids? Rock Kicks?”

“RockIts?” Xavior supplied, looking bewildered.

“RockIts! Of course. God, I love them, Asha you have to try.”

“Okay?”

“Um, I don’t know if we have any of those right now…” Xavior trailed off, looking bewildered.

Asha saw Obi note the ‘um’, remember how intimidating he could be if he tried, and draw himself up to his full height all in a matter of seconds.

“Well then what are you still doing here?” He pointed at Asha. “She has requested RockIts. Will you keep a lady prisoner without food?”

Xavior sputtered, “I don’t see what her being a _lady_ has anything to do with it, besides, it’s not like you’re _actually_ prisoners…”

Obi glared.

Xavior closed his eyes, throwing his hands up in defeat and sighing loudly.

“Fine. Is there anything else you would like? Not too expensive, though, I only have like 13 digits to my name right now.”

“The RockIts will suffice,” Obi replied. Asha tried not to giggle.

“Of course, my liege,” Xavior replied, deadpan. “Your wish is my command.” He turned to leave, muttering something under his breath about ‘menial labor’ and ‘today’s ungrateful youth’.

“Oh, Javier!” Obi called, just as the doors on the other side of the room slid open, “throw in some of those fun, sour gummy things they’ve been advertising everywhere too, will you?”

Asha slapped a hand over her mouth in an effort not to laugh.

The doors closed. Xavior mimicked a derivation on Asha’s hand gesture from earlier through the glass and stormed off down the corridor. And, despite everything, despite the crazy situation and the anxiety humming across her skin like a live wire, Asha lost it, laughing so hard that tears sprung to her eyes and began to run down her cheeks.

“ _Javier_ ,” she gasped. “You—oh my _god_.”

Obi grinned, lifting his chin. “I’m here all week.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-One

[planet: none] + [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Obi and Asha had been given two conjoining rooms, spacious and wide, a floor to ceiling window displaying the glittering lights of the station spread out beneath them. Asha knocked at the partition door.

“Yeah?”

The door creaked open. She was in pajamas, socked feet and pale pink clothing so incongruous with the scowl on her face that Obi barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. The scowl intensified.

“It’s not that bad,” he said.

Asha stalked into the room, and he saw that she was carrying her blankets.

“I’m sleeping here.”

“…Okay?”

She nodded, as though pleased with herself, and sat down on the ground, looking out at the station. The light was dimming, artificial light leached form the sky by programming in a simulation of night. It was as beautiful as it was unsettling.

“I don’t—” Asha started, “I don’t know how to feel about my father.”

Obi nodded. “It must be strange.”

Asha’s father had ben everything and nothing like Obi had pictured in the brief moment between _Obi, this is my father,_ and his turning around to stare the man in the face. The first thought that had entered his head was _cool scar,_ followed swiftly by _great teeth._ The subsequent unease that trailed after this thought might have had more to do with Obi’s deeply engrained distrust of father figures rather than any prejudice against people with tremendously straight teeth, but he had still resolved to be wary.

Asha closed her eyes, inhaling as though fortifying herself. “He’s not at all how I imagined.”

Obi knew what she meant.

“You wanted him to horrible. You villainized him for so long, you wanted him to be so detestable that all your resentment would be justified.”

She blinked at him. “Right.”

He shrugged. “Absent fathers are kind of my specialty.”

She said nothing, scratching her scalp absentmindedly. Obi looked at her hair. He was by no means an expert but—

“It’s bad, I know,” she said. “My mother usually braids it. She was going to redo it the night I left. Now it’s messy but I don’t want to touch it because every time I see it, it’s like she’s… I don’t know, like she’s here with me or something.”

“Oh, Asha…”

“Would you… could you do it?”

Obi looked at her.

“You don’t have to.”

“No! I want to. I do, I’m just not very good. I’ve never done it on anyone besides myself.”

She looked at his buzzcut.

“When I was younger I had cornrows like you.”

“That is adorable.” 

He pulled a face at her. “Hah. Come sit.”

She shuffled backwards, towards his feet.

Their reflections looked back at them from the clear window; Asha in her ridiculous pajamas, glaring at the view, and Obi, sitting behind her smiling fondly.  In another life they might have been siblings. Obi unraveled the cloth ties from the base of her neck, above the hair that puffed out above her shoulders, and began to tease the hair from the cornrows, humming softly to himself.

“You gonna wash it?”

“Yeah after this.”

He nodded.

“I have a comb in my coat pocket if you’d like to use that.”

“Are you sure?”

“’Course I am.”

They were silent. Obi finished undoing the first of three braids and moved onto the next one, his fingers separating the braids into strands and the strands into individual ringlets, teasing out the knots with careful movements.

“Can you tell me about Earth?” Asha said after a while. Her voice was quiet, undercut with a kind of desperation that made something twinge in Obi’s chest. “Can you tell me about the way it used to be, before we had to leave?”

He heard the unspoken question: _Can you tell me what it was like when our planet was our own and we were free?_

“Anything for you, milady,” he replied, and the exaggerated politeness was a joke, but also not a joke at all, because how could anyone hear what she was really asking and not go to the ends of the earth in an attempt to answer.

She laughed and settled back against the bed.

“Start at the beginning. Or your beginning. Or whichever beginning you like best. I don’t mind.”

 _Start at the beginning_ , he thought. _Okay._

“Once upon a time—oh my god, stop laughing— _once upon a time_ , dinosaurs walked the earth instead of people. You know what a dinosaur is? Okay. Well, before we were there, they were, until one day a giant comet came out of the sky and killed them all. After that there was nothing for a very long time, and then there was us. We were hunter gatherers at first, doing what we had to do to stay alive, and then a few hundred years passed and we had boats and we could cross the seas that had split the continents into separate land masses. The ancients kept mostly to themselves, but they produced some of the greatest works of art our race has seen to this day. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Legend of Lyongo. They were stories— _songs_ —about adventure and sacrifice and war and love, and nothing like them was ever written again. Then, later, things started to get messy because people started turning up in places they didn’t belong. There were empires and dynasties and whole civilizations that rose and then fell. People kept turning up in places they didn’t belong, colonizing them, enslaving the people who lived there—”

“What?” Asha said, disbelief in her voice. “Sorry, I don’t understand. _They_ went _there_ and enslaved the people who the land already belonged to? How does that work? I’ve never heard of it happening that way around,” she paused. “It didn’t happen that way for us.”

Obi blinked. _Of course_. In this future, Humanity had turned up in a place they didn’t belong, a place already owned by someone else and proclaimed it their own, without any thought for the consequences. They hadn’t encountered sentient life yet, and so assumed themselves to be _it_ , when in fact they were refugees from the outskirts racing towards the eye of a storm they didn’t understand in an attempt to flee the devastation they had wreaked on their own planet. Arrogant, _arrogant_ creatures, Obi thought _. It was their downfall, in the end._

“No,” he replied. “It didn’t work that way for you. But that says more about Thracin than Humanity, and you were so far away from that aspect of your past that the idea of colonization likely didn’t occur.” It felt like a lie as he said it, but that was because he could feel his own prejudices seeping through and discoloring the truth of the matter, which was this: people changed, people learned. Humanity had changed; Humanity had learned.

 “But,” he continued, “the colonized always overthrew their oppressor. No matter how long it took, they always got their freedom. And more.” That, at least, was the truth. Obi remembered suddenly the day he had spent in 2423, watching from a holographic screen in what was left of Times Square after World War Three as the United African Nations pledged to lead the peace talks and contribute more resources than the rest of the world combined towards the cleanup effort spanning the entire Northern Hemisphere and most of America. The news reporter had smiled as she announced that this heralded a new age, a new dawn for Humanity as a whole, and people had fallen to their knees all around him, weeping in the rubble, daring to hope that a near millennia of enmity had finally been absolved. The sun had shone brightly; red, orange, yellow, the new age coming in with the sunrise.

“When I was born, they hadn’t quite managed it,” he said, “but they would.”

 _And so will you_ , he was saying. _And so will you_.

Asha nodded mutely, and Obi pretended not to see the tears running down her cheeks in the reflection on the glass. He was combing through the second braid now, almost finished and about to start the third.

“There were some pretty extraordinary women on earth, back in the day. When being female was a lot like being Human now.”

“Tell me about them,” she said. “Tell me about the fiercest ones,” she added. “The ones who were told they couldn’t but didn’t listen.” 

Obi considered for a long moment. _The ones who were told they couldn’t but didn’t listen._

 _Where to begin?_ he thought _._ Then he did begin and found he couldn’t stop.

As the clock ticked forward and the lights shining in the station below flickered on in the night, he told her about girls who donned chainmail and picked up swords and banners, uniting their countries with war cries, girls who commanded ships and broke the law simply to live life the way they wanted to live it. Girls who wrote and wrote and wrote and didn’t stop, who circumnavigated the globe and disappeared into legend. Girls who were queens and girls who built rockets, girls that were torn down and torn down, but stood. Girls who kept diaries during desperate times, and girls that changed the course of science, defying the laws of physics to re-write their own. By the time he had run out of words, Asha was blinking slowly, tired eyes shining and full of something a little like hope. 

“Thank you,” she said, sighing a little. “I feel like maybe there’s a chance for me, now.”

Obi smiled at her, pride welling up in his chest.

“Of course, there’s a chance for you.”

Her curls fell around her ears, pressed into large ringlets by the braids. Obi gathered them away from her face, tying them up into a bun at the top of her head.

She put hands under her chin and smiled sweetly. “How do I look?”

“Surprisingly innocent,” Obi replied. “It’s horrifying, please stop.”

She punched his arm and stood, walking towards the bathroom.

“If I find out they gave you non-pink sleeping clothes I’m swapping, and you can have these.” The door closed.

Obi flopped onto his back. She was… a weird one, but it felt nice to be in her confidences. He had never had a friend who wasn’t George before, so it was strange to think that this short-tempered, impulsively reckless and obscurely kind individual would be the one to buck the trend and capture his heart. Friendship. It was a strange and unfamiliar feeling, one that had filtered slowly through his consciousness over the past few days to settle tentatively in his good graces. He smiled. There were certainly worse things.

 

 

***

 

Obi was on his way to the bathroom in the early hours of the morning when he began to feel watched. The back of his neck prickled as he walked down the dim hallway outside his room, the lights flickering on dimly as he passed them. The bathroom door slid soundlessly open as he stood in front of it, to reveal a tastefully tiled room filled with the expected amenities. The lights flickered on, the watched feeling persisted. Obi turned to look in the mirror, his own reflection looked back. He closed his eyes, trying to control his breathing. It was completely irrational to think there was anyone here besides himself. Unless Asha was playing tricks. Which he sincerely doubted.

He opened his eyes. 

Needle sharp teeth grinned back at him, a bare skull glinted, punctuated by archaic rune marks and the scars that came from using them. The cowl of a cloak bunched around a thin neck, long fingers steepled together under a pointed chin.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, leave me alone.”

“Nice to see you too, Obi. Although I must say you’ve grown since the last time I saw you. How is everything?”

Sputtering, Obi took a step forward. “Oh, no you don’t! We are not… friends! You nearly just gave me a fucking heart-attack. Oh my god.” He breathed deeply. _Stay calm, Amadi. Stay calm._ “Besides, you knew my father, not me,” he glared at her. “Qala. I don’t even think I like you.”

“Um, offended.”

“ _Please_ deactivate your auto-translation rune thingy. It’s so weird for you to talk to me in English. This is the sixtieth century. Not the beginning of the twenty first. Act like it.”

Qala looked at him imperiously.

“Hey, Obi?” she said in English.

“What?”

“No.”

“You’re infuriating, you know that? Why are you even here?”

Obi thought back to the last time he had seen Qala. He had been living with Hans and Bridget. The year was 1738. He had been thirteen-nearly-fourteen. His father had been gone for five years, he wouldn’t meet George for another year and six months (or seventy-four years, depending on which way you looked at it). He had been happy.

Qala had simply been sitting at the foot of his bed one day when he woke up.

He hadn’t immediately recognized her, just stood in shock for a second, before getting promptly out of bed and then attempting to walk out the door still in his night clothes. Qala had whispered a command and it had slammed in his face, the burnt, smoky smell of magic curling into his nose.

“Is that any way to greet your oldest acquaintance?”

“Qala.”

“The one and only.”

He hadn’t turn around. “If you’re looking for my father, regrettably, you will not find him here. Better places to be, more exciting people to let down, I’m sure you understand.”

“You’re right, I do understand. Fortunately, it’s you who I’m here to see. It always has been.”

“Oh, yes. I forget about your ‘guardian angel’ spiel.” He turned around. “Yes, I’m well. No, I have not experienced any excruciating pain in the region of my soul of late. Yes,” he smiled tightly, “I _am_ sure. May I show you the door, ma’am?”

Qala wrinkled her nose. Well. She wrinkled the middle part of her face. She didn’t really have a nose. ‘Vertical slits’ would have been more appropriate.

“Insolence doesn’t suit you, Amadi.”

“A pity.”

“Yes, it is.”

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

“Obi, he would have had his reasons for leaving, I can try and find him, but—”

“Qala, he doesn’t want to be found. He’s—he’s probably dead. I’ve accepted it. You should too.”

Then he had blinked, and she had vanished. But not before he caught the gleam of a single, mercurial tear sliding down her cheek.

Now, Obi thought, as he stood in a skyscraper on a ship as big as a planet halfway through a quest whose endpoint was the center of the galaxy, he was at least _doing something_ with his life.

Seeing Qala again after all these years was disconcerting to say the least. He knew she watched him. Had always known. But he was able to distance himself from that fact. She never stepped in. Never helped, or hindered, or offered advice. She simply observed, unseen. It was rare for her to instigate an interaction. This had made Obi incredibly wary of her.

“I know where your father is,” she said.

Obi saw white. His heart clenched. This couldn’t— there was no way that— _He was dead_. Obi was sure of it.

“My father died,” he said. “Otherwise he would have come back for me.” He was shaking.

“Oh, Obi—"

“Where?”

“I’m sorry—”

“ _Where?”_

Qala gulped. “London.”

“ _Qala—_ ”

“March. 1812.”

Obi closed his eyes. His heart was hammering, punching at his ribs. The dark, violent creature that slumbered inside its chambers reared its ugly head. So, Alarick Amadi lived. He lived and still apparently had enough of a hold on his powers to go back to where he had left his son. Maybe he had gone looking for Obi. Could it really be that he was trying to find him after all these years?

“Come with me to the Order,” Qala pleaded. “It’s where you b—we can _help_ you.” Her voice was soft but persistent. “Obi, it’s where you belong. Humans, they’re fleeting. They live such short lives. Order is what you need. It is everything and forever.”

Obi’s anger was dark and feral. Viscous and cruel.

“I’ll come with you if you tell me what the Order is.”

“You _know_ I can’t,” she replied, looking pained and uncomfortable. “You are uninitiated. To breach protocol like that… I value my life too much.”

“So, you can preach your _bullshit_ about ‘The Order’, telling me it’s _where I belong_ , that it’s what _my father would have wanted,_ but, after so long, after so many years of asking, you still refuse to tell me what the Order even is?” He laughed mirthlessly. “The Auspex Order, ruining lives since the beginning of time.”

“Don’t be—”

“What? Don’t be insolent? Difficult? Don’t be difficult, was that what you were going to say? Well, guess what, I am difficult. Nothing in my life has ever been easy, so I learned to adapt. So, no, I will not be joining a nameless, faceless organization that is apparently my ‘true home’ just because my father grew up as a part of it. I will go to the Consortium headquarters. I will get what I came for, and I will leave, and you will magically lose all interest in me because I will no longer be of any use to you, because after I take the cure, my powers will be gone. My powers will be gone.” He had never said it out loud before. “I know you could not care less,” he continued, “but I’m giving you my advice anyway! Cut your losses now. I am not worth it.”

Obi watched the calm blankness that spread across Qala’s face with grim satisfaction.

“Is that really what you think? That we’re only interested in you because you’re valuable to us?”

“Yes,” he replied, “because that’s the truth.”

“There is no such thing as ‘Truth’. That you have no value may be _your_ perception of the way this world works, but it sure as hell isn’t m—"

“I’m sick, Qala.”

He said it because he knew what effect it would have on her. “That’s a truth.” Pulling up his sleeve, he curled his hand into a fist. Blue light shone faintly through the joints of his metal fingers. “This is what I’ve become. I’m stronger than I was before, but every time I jump, I risk that strength. What if it’s my leg next time? Or an eye? A finger was bad enough.” He held up his right hand, showcasing the absence of the top half of his index finger. “A molar,” he continued, “half an eyebrow, two fingernails on my good hand. _My entire left arm._ And I learned to live without those. You think the Order would still want me if I was blind? I know they don’t have a cure for this. It says it in the Book.”

Qala was silent for a few moments.

Then, “The Book is thousands of years old. Did you ever think that maybe medicine might have advanced slightly between the time the book was written, and you reading it? Did you ever think that _maybe_ the reason I started asking you to come with me to the Order—even though I would be killed if my superiors knew I was interacting with you—was because I could help you get rid of this disease?” She looked at him, shaking her head. “Did you ever think, even for a moment, that you might be worth saving? That someone might actually want to help you because they see more in your future than you do?”

Obi said nothing.

“I told you about your father because I thought you ought to know. I don’t think he deserves to see you anymore than you do. I just,” she sighed. “I just thought you ought to know.” She was speaking slowly, like Obi was a skittish, wounded animal, poised to lash out at any moment. He supposed that he was. 

“You—" his voice cracked, “you have a cure?”

Qala’s eyes were warm, and her smile kind. She nodded, “It’s yours, if you want it.”

_If you want it._

Obi had never wanted anything more in his entire life. In fact, he didn’t think that anyone had ever wanted anything more in the history of the world.

“What about the side effects? Will I still be able to… will it take everything?”

Qala shook her head. “Your powers will remain untouched.”

He nodded once, not trusting himself to speak. Furiously, he wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand and looked at her. “I’ve been searching for years. I’ve been hoping, waiting, praying… By the time I heard about the possibility of a cure being manufactured on A’lkari I didn’t care about the consequences. I was willing to do anything. _Give_ anything. And now… Oh god, Qala—” he strode forward and pulled her into a hug. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you._ ”

She cleared her throat, “You were going to go the magekind, weren’t you? The magicians on A’lkari. You were going to ask them to cure you in exchange for your powers.”

Obi nodded slowly.

“Three years ago, they began to claim they had a cure all,” he said. “That they had made something which could cure anything. For the right price, of course,” he said. “I didn’t want to but… I didn’t think I had any other choice.”

“They’re owned by _Thracin_ , Obi. He controls them. They could have turned you in, captured you—”

“It was about energy collection, not taking prisoners. I thought that if I gave them my powers in the form of an energy exchange, or—or something, that would be enough.”

Qala studied him, slim fingers steepled in front of her face.

“You remind me of your mother when you get like this. Running headlong into situations without a plan and landing squarely on your feet anyway. If luck could be inherited I’d say you’d won the genetic lottery. You’d make her proud just by existing, you know.”

Obi looked downwards.  “I’ll _never_ forget this,” he said.

“ _Never_ is a long time.”

“Time to me is but a river, Qala,” he replied me solemnly, just to see her smile. “My father told me that. And all rivers lead to the sea. I’d remember what you’ve done for me even if I was stranded in the middle of the Atlantic. I owe you a life debt.”

“I thought you didn’t even like me.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I distinctly remember you saying that we ‘weren’t even friends’.” A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Ah, the follies of youth,” Obi said. “I’m afraid I don’t recall.”

“Also—and I’m assuming the Atlantic is some Earthern ocean—thank you. That was possibly the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Well, I mean—"

She cut him off with a glare. “Don’t you dare let that inflate your head any bigger than it already is, or I will be forced to reshape it by hand, with my knife.”

He flinched.

“Unfortunately, I can’t take you back to the Order’s planet of residence, due to the, ah, current political climate.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Obi asked, his interest piqued.

“No,” she replied.  “A coup.”

“Right.”

Qala smoothed her robes, “As I said, I will find you within a month. That should be enough time for this whole ordeal to blow over. They’ll be too preoccupied with instating a new leader to worry about one more apprentice running about the place.”

“They?”

“I know you never underwent a formal education, but surely you must know who usually carries out that kind of thing?”

“A coup?” Obi squinted at her. “The military? You have an entire military at the Order?”

Qala shrugged. “Of sorts.”

“Right, not going to question that. And, what do you mean ‘apprentice’?”

“I assume you’ll be staying with the Order after you’re cured? You’ll no longer need to ostracize yourself from society, or pander to the affections of humans, or…” she trailed off. “Did I say something offensive?”

Obi looked at her, disbelieving. “I didn’t ‘ostracize’ myself on purpose. I didn’t want any of this,” he said quietly. “And I never pandered to the affections of humans…” shaking his head in confusion he looked away. “I don’t—" he broke off. “Oh, you’re talking about George.”

“The Human prince? Yes.”

“Qala, he—I wasn’t… ngh.” He grimaced. “Just leave him out of this, would you?”

One of the runes on her neck lit up. Wincing, her voice turned grave, “Obi, I’m being called back to the Order. Remember, I will find you within a month, wherever and whenever you are. We can sort out the finer details when I see you next.” Holding one long, fine-boned hand over the side of her neck where the rune pulsed faintly, she closed her eyes. When she reopened them, they were scarlet. “Goodbye, Obi. Until next time.”

“Goodbye, Qala,” Obi said. But it was too late. She had vanished, leaving him alone in the bathroom once again. He looked back into the mirror and smiled at his reflection.

“Oh my _god_.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Six

[planet: Earth]  + [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

The boat’s wooden floors were slick with damp and crusted with sea salt, coils of rope sitting like pale snakes in the damp, dark corners. For the past few weeks, Alarick and George had been following a trail of whisperings and rumours; people dying and refusing to stay dead, corpses returning to work no longer corpses, but healthy and invigorated, more alive than they were before. George remembered one woman’s account very distinctly. A baby, still born and blue, had been laid in its casket, dressed in the clothes it should have worn to its christening. The mother beside it, weeping into the folds of its lacy gown. Then, in the small hours of the morning, a cry. The baby bawling with the strength of an infant at full health. The mother had awoken at once, just in time, she had said, to see the hand of an angel brush the baby’s brow. A pure white hand, no less. Her baby had been blessed by God Himself, she had whispered reverently, clutching the infant to her chest as though it were made of solid gold.

George’s neck prickled, his eyes darting around. The whole thing made him feel sick with anxiety, whilst simultaneously granting him a sense of purpose that felt rather dangerously like the most tangible thing in his life right now. A mandate, stuck-firm in his mind amidst the roiling sea of self-loathing in which dark shapes cruised for victims. His marriage, his country, his father; they all threatened to swallow him whole. This mission was like a grounding weight, a lodestone in the dark. Find the god. Kill the god. Save the city. It didn’t matter that the killing of a god was an impossible task. Didn’t matter that they had been searching for two months since that night on the balcony. Didn’t matter that since that night George had felt _watched_ in a way he could not describe. Observed. Like an insect in a microscope slide, trapped between one piece of glass and another. Exposed and unable to escape.

Their search had led them to the docks, where a whole boatload of sailors had been hauling gunpowder the day before. One of them had lit a pipe too close to the cargo and a spark had set the whole boat ablaze still tethered to the pier. Everyone aboard should have died, and they had, albeit briefly. The next day, the same boatload of sailors had reported for work, seaweed still hanging limply from their work clothes, smiles gaunt and inhuman. Their families were overjoyed, of course. But other people whispered. Called them the ‘Skeleton Crew’ like something out of a fable. At first George had been hesitant to investigate. It sounded so eerie, so unnatural and strange, but Alarick had insisted, and George was going out of his mind at the palace, and so he’d come along.

The rough trousers he was wearing itched, and the woolen jacket scratched at his neck, but he needed to blend in and wearing common clothes was best idea either of them had. There was something thrilling about it, he thought. Something incredibly charming about disguising oneself for a secret mission, even if that mission was turning out to be particularly… distasteful.

Something crunched under Alarick’s boot, splintering like dry wood. They both looked down.

It was a bone. Clean of flesh and any sinew, so white it almost glowed, and now cracked cleanly in half, shards of it littering the floor around the breakage.

“Oh,” said George.

A creaking to the left had them both turning sharply, trying to make out the source of the noise. It could have been the noise of the old boat’s sodden timbers settling in the water, but it didn’t sound like that. It sounded deliberate.

“Who’s there?” Alarick called. “Show yourself.”

George watched as he eased a hand inside his coat and brought out a pistol, its barrel gleaming gold in the light filtering through the floorboards above them. They waited for a reply.

Two minutes, then five.

Nothing.

George turned to Alarick, “You don’t suppose we should—”

A thud.

They both tensed, eyes peering around in the gloom, trying to see every corner at once.

Alarick jerked his head, “Quickly, get back to back.”

Another thud, followed by a low scraping sound.

“Should we not—”

_Thud. Scrape. Slide._

George flung himself across the room, pressing his back to Alarick’s. He drew his sword out of its sheath, it’s familiar leather grip molding to his hand. The steel sung as it left its scabbard, a battle cry, a call to war. A throwing down of the gauntlet.

_Thud. Scrape. Slide._

_Groan_.

George inhaled sharply. “What was that?” he hissed.

“I don’t know,” came the reply. “I have my suspicions. I dearly hope they are wrong.”

The next thud, when it came, was far louder and far closer than it had been before. The scraping sound that followed seemed weightier. George was struck with the horrible image of a body dragged along the floor, blood trailing behind it like a crimson ribbon, face slack and raw on one side where it had been scraped along the slimy floorboards.

There was another groan, low and guttural, like a wounded animal. Instantly, George was reminded of a childhood horse, one he had lost, wounded in a hunt. The animal had misjudged a jump over a fence and caught its leg on one of the pointed stakes protruding from the top, impaling its thigh. The squealing roar it had released still made George sick to his stomach thinking about, and now, as he heard the low, agonized groaning of whatever thing it was keeping them company on the boat, he could not help but remember. They’d put the horse out of its misery, but George had wept for days. He had a feeling he would not mourn the death of whatever creature lurked in the shadows on the other side of the door frame. The thing groaned again, almost screaming.

Then it dragged itself into the light.

It was a child. A boy of about seven or eight, clawing his way across the floor. He could not stand because he had no legs. They were mangled past the point of recognition, and even George who had never seen such an injury in his life could recognise the effects of blunt trauma. This boy had been crushed by something a thousand times heavier than him, and it had turned his legs to a bloody pulp.

The child looked at them, groaning in that low, keening way, his eyes wide and fearful, skin pale and tinged blue.

“It was the mast,” he said. “The explosion toppled it, and I didn’t move fast enough. I—It _got_ me.”

Alarick had moved from behind George to standing next to him. They were the same height, but George had never felt more diminished in his life. The boy’s teeth were chattering, his eyelashes webbed together still, as though he were wet. In fact, all his clothes were soaking, and his hair was plastered to his forehead.

“It… it h—hurts,” he mumbled. “It hurts so much.”

Alarick sighed.

“This is what happens when you disrupt the natural order,” he said. “Things slip through the cracks and are loathe to return.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Yes.”

The boy wailed, and the sound flew like an arrow to George’s heart, piercing it. Guilt bubbled inside him. This boy was a citizen of his. It was his duty to protect his citizens, and he had failed. Miserably.

George felt his hands begin to shake. _No_ , he thought desperately. _Not now, please not now._

The boy had not looked away from them, staring with wide, glassy eyes. The reality of what he was was undeniable. The blue lips, the blackened fingertips, the mangled legs and pale, pale skin. The distended bloatedness of him.

This poor boy had died, _drowned_ , and had been brought back from death, but only partially. He had slipped through the cracks of Iel’s supposed miracle and landed badly on the other side. He was not meant to be, and it showed.

“What are we to do?” George asked.

Alarick was still. “I think we ought to put him out of his misery. I just can’t bring myself to…”

George nodded solemnly. “Me neither.”

“Wait outside.”

George looked at him sharply, “I may not—”

“I can see your hands shaking.” Alarick’s stare was blank and unyielding. “Go and take your medicine before you become such a liability I am forced to dispatch you, too.”

Heat flared in George’s cheeks. “You have no right to talk to me in that way.”

Alarick shrugged, and flicked the safety catch off his pistol.

George looked at him searchingly for a few moments, trying to find the Obi in his gaze. The compassion and the warmth. The morality and the love of good.

He found none. It didn’t shock him.

By the time he was outside, his hands were trembling violently, sending jarring shudders up his arms. He could barely grasp the bottle of laudanum without dropping it, and uncorking it took several moments to complete, but he did it. The bitter taste in his mouth had barely faded when Alarick joined him on the dock, the sound of a gunshot still ringing in his ears. Neither of them spoke.

The river water lapped feebly at the shore of the Thames, shingle sliding over smooth rock run through with greyish sand and blue-tinged silt. The water was black at night, glittering as fiercely as the city it divided. George breathed in its damp and earthy river smell and exhaled any certainties he once held about the future. Even tomorrow was no longer guaranteed. Not with a vengeful trickster of a god prowling the streets, and a wrathful yet unknowable time-traveler as his only hope for salvation.

He looked to the sky, and its boundless stars.

 _Where are you?_ he wanted to shout. _I need you. Come home._

 

***

George was dreaming. He knew it was a dream because Obi was there, and also because it was the Obi he had known four years ago, as opposed to the one he had been reunited with so recently. He wondered if he too were younger in this dream, and so he looked down at his hands. They were still, perfectly motionless, poised in front of him, ready to obey any command. A lump formed in his throat.

It was a winter’s day. He was standing by the window of his room, watching snow fall onto St James’ Park. Pale sunlight, weak but crisp, filtered through grey clouds, lending the whole scene an air of timelessness. It felt like December.

_Oh, he knows what this is._

“It looks like the sky is peeling off in flakes and falling to earth,” Obi observed.

George turned from the window.

_This is the day that Obi leaves him._

“I suppose it does.”

Obi grinned. “As lovely as staring forlornly out of the window is, and as sure as I am that snowflakes are just as scintillating to you as conjugating Latin verbs… I’m bored.” He shrugged, “Let’s do something.”

George turned back to the window to hide his smile. “I was under the impression that we _were_ doing something.”

“Avoiding responsibilities by staring out of a window does not count. We’ve talked about this.”

“I beg to differ,” George replied. “Anyway, it’s not as though I’m actually needed at any of those meetings. My father simply wishes to humiliate me. He would love nothing better than for everyone to realise what a useless monarch I’ll make when the time comes.”

“You won’t be useless,” Obi said. “You will be great. And everyone will rue the moment they discarded thoughts of greatness when it came to you.”

George heard the soft scraping of chair legs on carpet, and then muffled footsteps as Obi came to stand by him at the window.

“You’re five times the man he will ever be. And you’re not useless. Not to me.”

“I’m fairly sure that was almost treason.”

“No,” Obi sat down on the window seat and looked up at him, the winter sunlight highlighting his jaw bone and the cut of his cheek. “bordering on sedition perhaps, but not quite treason,”

He turned, grinning impishly, and there it was. That feeling like a lightning strike, sneaking past lowered defenses to pierce his ribcage. It was almost physically painful, the warmth curling in his chest; like a sleeping dragon tending to the furnace Obi’s smile made of his heart, breathing tendrils of smoke and blowing flames onto a fire he could not seem to put out. It was like there had been a block of ice in his chest that was now melting, or a green leaf blooming red in the autumn, or a phoenix, burning.

He did not know what it was. His cheeks warmed. The room suddenly felt very hot and very small.

“Read to me,” he blurted out, striding away from the window to lie face down on his bed.

“Okay,” Obi said simply. “What would you like?

 _What would I like?_ He thought wildly, _to be needed, to be free, to feel at home in a place instead of a person, to look at myself and my achievements and feel pride instead of shame and look at my country and my crown without dread in my heart. To understand what I’m feeling. To not feel it. To not look at you and want what I do._

“The Iliad, Book Sixteen, if you wouldn’t mind.” His voice was muffled by the duvet. “The part where—"

“I know what part.” Obi replied. “Patroclus’ death? Someone’s feeling maudlin.”

“Just read it.”

Obi was silent for a few seconds, as though considering.

“No.”

George smiled into the mattress.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no, I will not indulge your alarming methods of self-punishment until you tell me what’s wrong.”

George opened his mouth to reply and then decided against it. This was a dream. He should force himself to wake up or lie there until he did. Usually, the mere thought would be enough, but ever since the laudanum brought him under its cool, calculated control, he had found it so hard to separate dream from reality. The hours he spent sleeping he spent trapped in whatever fantasy land the drugs conjured and he endured it because it was better than real life.

The thought occurred to him suddenly, like a lightning strike: if this was a memory happening inside a dream, why was he still following the script?

He sat up.

“What would you do,” he asked, looking Obi directly in his clear, grey eyes, “if I told you I was in love?” He flushed hard after he said it, the words turning juvenile and clumsy as soon as they left his mouth. _What did he know of love?_

Obi’s jaw clenched.

George stood, walking over to the window seat, painfully aware of each footstep on the carpet, of each breath he drew in and out of his dragon-housing, fire-breathing, traitorous, _traitorous_ lungs. Aware of the way Obi tracked his movements, a blank mask drawn over his features. Cautious, cautious.

“What would I do?” He replied softly, voice even. “Why, I would enquire as to whom your affections have been so wholly captured by, of course.”

George had not planned for this. Had not planned for anything. His voice stuck in his throat.

“And if I told you that no one could know? What would you say then?”

Obi looked at him, pained, and George almost saw the future of this hazy thing pan out between them.

“I’m not quite sure what you want from me,” Obi said. “Your Highness.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

George clenched his hands into fists. “You’re trying to protect me from my own feelings by reminding me of the distance between us. Stop it.”

“If I don’t, no one will.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“No. _You_ don’t know what you want. I have a very good idea. It’s not—you don’t—"

George took one sharp step forward.

“Why don’t you tell me, then, if you know so well?”

They were both silent, breathing harshly, unable to look away from each other’s eyes.

“Serva me, servabo te.” George said plainly.

Obi’s eyes closed.

In the bright light reflected off the snow falling outside, George could see the fine grain of his dark skin, discern every eyelash from its neighbor, trace the fade of his hair at his temples with a single, searching look. He _did_ know what he wanted. Had known for a long time. Longer than he was willing to admit.

“Semper fidelis,” Obi whispered haltingly, and George watched his mouth form every syllable. “But you already knew that.” He opened his eyes. The look that passed between them was so charged, so laden with unspoken confessions and profane, scalding secrets that George could feel Obi’s stare like a weight on his shoulders.

 _Is this what we could have had?_  He thought wildly, _is this what my own cowardice stole from me?_

“Why are you doing this?” Obi asked, lifting a hand to rest just shy of George’s neck. “ _Can_ you do this? Can you let yourself have what you want without punishing yourself night after night in penance?” George resisted the urge to flinch. He felt laid bare and so… so _known_ he could not think. Obi’s fingers brushed George’s collar, pressing soft fabric to his skin, the heat from his hand seeping through. “I won’t let you poison yourself for my sake. You can’t ask me to _save_ you, without knowing how to save yourself first. I—”

“It would be worth it,” he said. “If I could have you.”

George watched as Obi stilled, frozen in this moment—a moment of pure fabrication, a moment they had never had and would never have, now—resting his hand fully on the back of George’s neck, fingers curling under his collar. George leaned into the touch, trembling. Everything in him screamed that he shouldn’t want this, that he had a duty to his country and that _this_ was not it. He could not bring himself to care; he had a duty to himself, too.

 _This is how it might have been,_ he thought sadly. _Why did you have to leave for me to become brave enough to ask for it?_

Their foreheads were pressed together now.

“Are you certain?” Obi asked. “I don’t think that I’m the person you believe me to be. I’m not as good as you believe me to be.”

“I’ve never been less certain about anything.” George replied. “But you make me less afraid.”

Obi shook his head slowly. George lifted a steady hand and tipped Obi’s chin upwards towards his own.

The kiss was clumsy at first. Slightly misaligned, noses bumping. George’s heart was racing, thundering in his chest like a gathering storm. The moment felt warm and safe and electric all at the same time. They fit together perfectly; George standing, his hips bracketed by Obi’s thighs, his hands on Obi’s waist. The fingers on the back of his neck tightened, drawing him closer. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to another person before. He could get lost in this, he thought hazily. He could very well get lost in a moment like this.

Eventually, they pulled apart, both smiling and flustered and a little breathless.

It was at this moment that the George who was not living this moment but observing it, began to notice the decay at the edge of his vision. Tendrils of darkness were seeping into the room, leaking from the walls and the light fixtures, crawling their way under the door, seeping into the room like wet rot.

“George?” Obi asked, “Are you alright?”

But George was looking wildly around the room, trying to locate the source of the encroaching shadow.

The tendrils were moving quickly, as though blown by the wind, whipping themselves into a tornado that ripped papers from his desk and toppled chairs that felled lampstands.

“George?” Obi’s voice sounded far away. “I’m sorry, I—"

George turned to look at him, but he was gone.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, _no_ —"

The whirlpool of darkness split down the middle and a person stepped out. No, George realised, his heart plummeting. Not a person. A god.

“What have you done?” he asked.

Iel’s mouth curved sharply into a smile. “I’m getting to know you.”

“By invading my most private memories and… and _decaying_ them?”

Iel shrugged, unaffected. “You didn’t always care for him,” he said blankly.

George flinched.

“You didn’t understand him at first. You could not figure him out and it was infuriating. You always knew there was something different about him. About the way he felt things. You thought he experienced emotion in a different way, a deeper way. That’s what drew you to him. A clinical curiosity. A morbid fascination with the strange, exotic, sad looking boy who had given you his soul. You thought he was broken and that you might be able to fix him. Or—what was the word you used? Oh yes. You thought you might be able to _save_ him. _Serva me, servabo te_.” He laughed, low and mocking. “Save me and I’ll save you. How naïve.”

“No,” said George. “I never wanted to fix him, or save him, for that matter. I wanted him happy. I would have done anything. But you don’t understand that, do you? Goodwill. It is not something you have ever tried to comprehend. There is nothing naïve about this, except you.”

Iel sneered. “Such things are beneath me. I have no use for them. Fear, anger, regret. _Guilt_.” He inhaled, and George saw his pupils dilate until his iris almost vanished. Black ringed by brightest red; a display of purely perverse pleasure. “Those are the things I deal in, and the dead provide them in abundance. I reap souls and command armies. I am the judge, jury… and well, I would be executioner, but you see my problem,” his eyes glittered like the eyes of a snake before it strikes. “ _You_ sit in your gilded cage and defer power to others. By your very nature you fear me, fear death and fear the uncertainty of it. You are weak, I am not.” He narrowed his eyes. “And yet you still seek to destroy me. Why? You must know it is futile.”

George had no reply. He wasn’t sure he even knew himself.

 _Because it’s right,_ he thought. _Because I swore an oath to this country. Because the very nature of my birth means that I must see that country through to glory, and not let it burn at any hand but my own. Because I want to. Because I have no other choice._

Iel nodded. “I thought as much.” Something like disappointment marred his perfect features for a moment, before they smoothed again and it was gone.

“What do you want from this city?” George asked quietly. “The people that you’re bringing back from beyond the grave… why? What purpose does it serve?”

Iel flicked his fingers in dismissal. “What purpose? Why, a higher one, of course. Mine. I need worship to bolster my power, and I’m very good at garnering it from the dead.”

“But they’re no longer dead.”

“Not now, but they were. And when they were, I came to them and whispered my name in their ears and told them to build me monuments and temples and to pray to me in those temples _and they did_.”

“You’re the Angel.”

Iel nodded.

“We already have a god in this country.”

“Your god is ancient. He sleeps, lying blind, preferring not to bear witness to the perversities committed in his name.” He trailed a finger over the edges of the dream, as though examining its seams for any give. “Besides, how do you now he did not send me to test you?”

George was silent.

Iel waved a hand, “This is immaterial. By the summer solstice the city will be mine. The dead will be dead once more and anyone who is not will be dying. Yourself included. Although,” he paused. “I might need someone to keep me company.” His crimson eyes were bright, his voice was low and smooth as velvet. “Would you like that?”

George momentarily forgot how to breathe.

“Are you propositioning me?” he asked, disbelieving and completely bewildered. “W—why?”

Iel’s eyes darkened.

“Because I can. Because I want to.” His eyes like scarlet blood spilled over purest marble looked suddenly obscene.

“I don’t… I don’t believe you.”

Iel’s body flickered like a candle flame, and then he was standing right in front George, crowding him against the wall to his back.

“Whether you believe me or not,” he whispered, “is none of my concern.” He pressed two fingers to George’s neck, and laughed low in his throat at the jumping, erratic heartbeat he found there. “I came to this place, this city, because I wanted more.” George noticed dimly that Iel had no body heat. “And you look a lot like _more_ to me _,_ curious thing that you are. _”_ The god’s fingers felt like cool stone on George’s neck. He shivered involuntarily.

Iel inhaled.

“ _Oh_ ,” he said. “Do that again.”

“Get away from me.”

That smile again, curved like a scimitar and twice as deadly.

“This is _your_ dream,” he said, enunciating every word. “Why don’t you make me?”

George woke up.

The darkness of his room was a welcome reprieve from the blinding whiteness of Iel’s skin and hair and eyelashes. His hands were shaking worse than they ever had before and his neck ached. His spine felt crushed. He stumbled out of bed, sweeping his hand across his bedside table in a desperate effort to locate his medicine. A vase of tulips crashed to the floor, deafening in the silence. His teeth chattered. _Why was he so cold?_ His fingers grasped the bottle and ripped the lid off. The laudanum was bitter as ever, but he was used to it by now.

Minute by minute his shaking slowed, until the tremors were weak and infrequent, and his breathing had evened out. He stood, walking shakily towards the adjoining bathroom. He lit a candle on the way, and pushed open the door, setting the small flame down on the side of the sink. He looked into the mirror.

Two bright, purple-red bruises were pressed into his neck. Oval shaped and angry, just above his pulse point. He resolved not to look at them. There were dark bruises under his eyes, too, but he was well aware that he hadn’t been sleeping. The green rings of his irises were dull, almost lifeless.  He pressed his forehead into the mirror and exhaled weakly, his breath clouding the cool glass.

“George?” said a quiet voice. “Are you alright?”

He flinched. _Caroline_.

He turned around. “Did I wake you?”

“The vase,” she said, gesturing back into the room. “It was very loud.”

Her German accent was especially noticeable when she was tired.

“Apologies, I was… ah, dreaming.”

“ _Albtraum_?”

“ _Ja_. A nightmare.” He stroked her hair, wilting a little inside at how brotherly they both knew the gesture to be, and smiled encouragingly at her. “ _Das gute an Albträumen ist, dass sie nicht real sind._ ”

She nodded, appeased, and likely soothed a little by the familiar language. He resolved to speak it more often.

She turned to go, and the smile slid off his face like wax down a candle stick.

 _The good thing about nightmares,_ he’d said, _is that they are not real._

 

His neck pulsed in memory of the two frozen fingertips that had pressed there.   

If only that were true.

 

***

 

 

“The summer solstice?” Alarick asked, pacing up and down the chilly flagstones of the palace’s basement. “That’s barely two months away!”

“I’m aware,” George replied pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger. “What do we do?”

“We have to ensure that we control more variables than him, that we gain a monopoly over the city in some way that is outside of his realm of power.”

“But how?” George asked. “He is a _god_. We are nothing compared to that. Humans limited by our mortal frailty and inherent ordinariness. Ephemeral. Powerless.”

“You forget I am not human,” Alarick said, “and far from ordinary.” His eyes were dark, his brow furrowed. “He may be a god, but this is my city. The city I raised my son in. The city that harbored me when I thought all was lost and gave me a home and hope and something else to love that couldn’t be taken from me as easily as a life.”

George was silent, startled. He had seen Obi in that frown. Had heard him in the conviction of Alarick’s tone.

“I also reject the title of powerless,” he scoffed. “I have power. You see, time has a highly pleasing tendency of doing the things I want.” His voice had grown quieter. “He thinks he is so mighty because he was given power and no choice but to wield it. I fought for my power. _It_ chose _me_. People sought to use me as a vessel for that power, and for many years they did. Not because I let them, but because I did not believe I had any other choice. Before them, I had been told I was special. So much so that it ceased to be a glorious thing and instead became a burden. You like all that ancient Greek stuff, right?”—George nodded in bewilderment—"Well, I felt like Atlas; the whole sky on my shoulders because I could do a few things other people couldn’t.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I can construct whole hypothetical worlds, and see the future in them, but if you had asked me then what I might become with time, I would have said ‘no one’.”

George remained silent. This felt almost too personal, but he was coming to realise that perhaps Alarick had been alone for a very long time. Maybe he needed this.

“I never told you what I saw in the future, did I?”

“No.”

Alarick smoothed a hand over his forehead, rubbing at his dark eyes as though he could dislodge whatever it was he had seen.

“London was burning,” he said finally. “There were two gods in the city instead of one. My son was there and he—” he broke off.

 _He what?_ George wanted to shout. But also, _Obi in London._ It seemed impossible.

“And the people,” Alarick continued. “The people they were….” He trailed off, frozen mid-step, eyes widening in comprehension, clarity and understanding transforming his features. George imagined for a second that he was receiving a prophecy sent from some benevolent god to help them, just like the heroes of old, but Alarick’s next words killed that idea where it stood.

“They were frozen,” he murmured. George wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

“The people were frozen?”

“Yes.” Alarick replied. “Frozen in time.”

“ _How_?”

“I don’t know yet. Hush, I’m trying to think.”

George watched him, equal parts disbelieving and in awe. A future where everyone in the city was frozen in time… It seemed like something out of a fairytale. Everyone sleeping until the gallant outsider woke the prince with a kiss… Or the princess, rather. George shook his head, mourning the last of his sanity. Perhaps this was all one long hallucination. He wondered if he wanted it to be.

Alarick was muttering, counting things on his fingers, looking half mad and the other half delirious.

“Oh!” he said. “The Artifacts. Of course. We have to _ask_ for time.”

George stared at him mildly. “I am fluent in English, French, German, Latin and Ancient Greek, but none of that made even the smallest jot of sense.”

Alarick gestured to a small, rickety chair in the corner. “Why don’t you take a seat.”

Half an hour later, George was fighting off the beginnings of a splitting headache, and desperately trying to comprehend everything he had just been told. He now understood why Obi had been so reluctant to talk about any of this before. He had glimpsed impressions of this life and its finnicky rules when he had touched the piece of Obi’s soul, but he had never imagined how complex they truly were.

“You mentioned Obi.” George said, “You said that he was in the future. Will he… will he be alright?”

Alarick’s hardened features softened slightly. “You know about his illness, I presume?”

George stuttered, “I have an idea, but not—not the whole picture.” His throat felt raw.

_He never told me._

“He always seemed so healthy. Besides, ah, besides the arm.”

“That’s part of it, I’m afraid. It’s my fault. He wasn’t trained properly. I should have been there.”

“Yes,” George said. His skin felt hot suddenly. Prickly. “You should have.”

Alarick looked at him sharply. “I didn’t leave on a whim. Though, I suppose that’s exactly what it was. A whim that went entirely wrong and dragged me back into the life I had tried to so hard to escape. I’m not going to explain myself to you, though. There are more pressing matters at hand, wouldn’t you agree?”

George nodded stiffly.

“My son is sick with a legendary virus that strikes when a Guide is at their weakest; during their Anchoring. Usually, we are taught the proper measures and counter-measures needed to repel the virus and its effects. Obi was not taught and so fell prey to it. Now, every time he uses an Artifact to travel through time and space, he risks being physically unmade.”

“Which I suppose is completely different to being mentally unmade.”

“Of course.”

“But if he risks that then why…”

“Why did he leave you?”

George felt the blood rush to his face but nodded anyway.

“I have a friend who, for reasons I cannot fully comprehend, likes to keep tabs on my son. She informed me that he has been seeking a cure for a few years now.”

“So, you think he left because he found it? Or found out how to get it?”

Alarick’s expression was strange. If George didn’t think it absurd, he would have thought the man felt sorry for him.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

 _Right,_ thought George.

“Anyway,” Alarick pressed on. “Back to the problem at hand. The frozen time, the city, stopped. I know how to do it.”

“You do? How?”

Alarick paused, consternation twisting his features. In the end he sighed, grabbed his hat, and started walking to the door.

“It’s really better if I show you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Five

[planet: none]  + [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 “You really want to come with us?” Obi asked, staring blankly at Xavior where he sat across the table. They had been up for two hours now, and negotiating for one. Obi had thought they’d be well on their way, but apparently Xavior hadn’t been joking when he’d said he wanted to join them,

“Yes, I want to come.”

Asha squinted at him, and Obi could tell that she was having a hard a time as he was in understanding why anyone would willingly volunteer to accompany two fugitives on a mission to the headquarters of the government that hunted them without gaining something of significant personal value from the whole endeavor.

“It would count towards the ‘Perilous Adventure’ section of my apprenticeship,” Xavior explained for what felt like the hundredth time. “Like I said before, it’s a purely selfish motivation. It’s a dumb old rule, but I can’t complete my apprenticeship without it. Also, I’m… rather well acquainted with the holding cells on A’lkari. So, there’s that.”

Obi saw the exact moment that Asha ceased to see Xavior as dead weight and instead began to view him as valuable cargo.

“So, you know your way around a prison,” she said, still playing it cool. “So do I. Doesn't make you special. Doesn't make us need you.” She leant forward. “If I wanted a talking map, I’d download one. For us to even consider bringing you with us, you would need to offer something invaluable.”

“I know where they're keeping your sister.”

Asha stilled, her features freezing.  

“Not the exact cell,” he explained, “but close enough. It’s where they keep those due to be ‘released’. Read: transported to carry out hard labour on other planets when their families don’t come for them. Those cells and I go way back, actually. This trip’ll be like a vacation into childhood trauma.” He smiled humorlessly. “Can't wait.”

Throughout this whole exchange, Asha’s father had remained pensive and silent, observing their exchange with mild interest and infrequently staring off into space. Now he stepped forward.

“So, it is settled. You will allow him to accompany you as part of his training, which seems sufficiently perilous to qualify for his training,”—Obi and Asha traded equally stupefied glances— “and in turn, he will be your guide through the prison tunnels of A’lkari. Are we in agreement?”

Turning the thought over in his mind, Obi supposed it did make relative sense. Their plans regarding _what to actually do_ once they reached A’lkari were vague and hazy at best. At worst, they were summed up by a particularly late-night conversation Obi and Asha had had on their journey to Nautikos in the dim cockpit of their (second) stolen ship: “So, A’lkari. We need a plan of action. Thoughts?” he had asked. “Hnnnnng no,” Asha had replied.

Now they were sitting here, the very answer that had eluded them for so long smiling roguishly at them, fangs glinting impishly in the light.

Asha rubbed her brow with her hand, massaging the bridge of her nose.

“Yes,” she sighed. “I guess we are in agreement.”

They shook hands.

“You’ll need provisions; I can provide them. I can arrange transport to a location near A’lkari, but after that, you’re on your own. Now get some rest. You leave this evening, under the cover of darkness.

 

***

 

 

Asha panted as she climbed up yet another ladder slippery with condensed steam, out of the dark tunnel they had been walking through for the past hour.

Her father had seen them off with a gruff goodbye and disappeared back into his impenetrable skyscraper of an ivory tower. She had watched him ruffle Xavior’s hair and press something into his hand and had felt… nothing but a strange, removed wistfulness. In another life that might have been her. In another life Tosìn might have been family. _In another life, in another life_. It was useless to think about, and they were long departed now anyway. She would likely never see him again. The thought pricked at her like a needle scraping skin. She pushed it out of her mind.

Emerging into an alleyway in one of the older sectors of the station was a pleasant surprise. Here, Asha could imagine what the station would have been like before the shiny plasma screens and flashing lights and digit signs. It was messy, and colourful, and real. Stacks of shipping containers towered crookedly into the sky, spilling their inhabitants onto the streets where they hawked their wares onto the wide-eyed sentients seeking their destinies. There seemed to be a large Gako population, some of whom were selling beautifully twisted metal sculptures that moved of their own accord and showing off hundreds of glittering bangles on each of their four purple arms. It took everything in her not to stare. Asha saw a sentient sitting cross-legged on the ground, tattooing another sentient of the same species with sharp spiky symbols that looked a little like a language.

“They’re Vdawan,” Obi explained. “Their ancestors were the ones to compile the songs of their origin stories into the holy book of Vada’Wa. Before Thracin, Vada’Wanism  was the most popular religion in the galaxy. It’s illegal to practice now, but people still do.”

Asha nodded, smiling. It was incredibly comforting to know people still practiced their faith, regardless of the possible punishments.

“This way!” called Xavior, jogging off behind a giant shipping container.

Obi nudged her.

“So, what do you make of him, then?

Asha wrinkled her nose, thinking.

“I’m not sure yet. He’s obviously loyal to my father, which means that his training will likely always come first.”

“True,” Obi replied. “Most people don’t need to undertake a highly criminal venture and risk their life to gain life experience.” He narrowed his eyes. “I say we keep an eye on him.”

“Agreed,” said Asha.

“Although we do need him, so I suppose we might have to be nicer. Try not to scare him off, yeah?”

“Whatever,” she said, but she was smiling.

Xavior popped his head around the crate.

“Are you two coming or what?”

***

 

The ‘ship’ was the strangest thing Asha had ever seen. If she had doubted Nautikos’ magic before, she no longer did. It couldn’t even really be called a ship, as technically it shouldn’t have been able to fly.

“No way!” Obi shouted, when they boarded. “How in God’s good and glorious name did they replicate a tube carriage?”

Asha and Xavior both looked at him, lost.

“Tube… carriage?”

“You guys don’t—right, of course you would have no idea what that is. Was? Is.” He scratched the back of his head. “So, basically, on Earth in like the… I don’t know, the late 1800s? Or something? The government built a transport system that ran underneath the city of London. It had stations that led above ground in really convenient places so that everyone could get where they needed to go. It fell out of usage in the 2500’s because teleportation technology moved out of the private sector and into the public, so everyone just started doing that instead, but yeah, it was awesome and retro as fuck, and now it’s here.” He was grinning so hard Asha thought his face might split in half, so she elected not to tell him that she still had no idea what he was talking about.

“Cool.”

The seats were faded, patterned with chequered squares of blue. Rectangular windows stretched down either side of the carriage, a simulated view flickering past. The names of places they were apparently passing were all in English, so Asha couldn’t read them too well. Instead, she sat down and watched Xavior trying to climb one of the yellow poles placed in the middle of the carriage. He reached out an arm to grab the small handles placed above the seats for standing passengers, but he leant too far and nearly fell, lurching forward and grabbing on just in time. His shirt bunched up around his ribs, and Asha was suddenly confronted with the greenness of his skin, as well as the smooth muscle of it, and the way his dark hair now hung in disarray over his eyes. He winked at her.

She looked away.

Xavior lowered himself to the ground, and then slumped into a seat, his knees bouncing up and down as he tapped his foot.

“So,” he said.

Asha looked at him.

“So… what?” she asked.

“ _So_ , we’re really going to A’lkari, then.”

“Yes.”

Asha heard Obi groan. She looked at him innocently, eyes wide. He shook his head.

“What my kind and talkative friend _means to say_ ,” Obi interjected, “is yes, we really are going to A’lkari, thank you so much for agreeing to accompany us.” He smiled, all teeth. “Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?”

 

***

 

Half an hour later, after a story from Xavior about his past that had involved three swordfights, a shootout and a stint in a travelling band (a story that Asha would bet against her indenture was one thousand percent false) the view outside the window began to change.

Before, they had been speeding through dark, murky tunnels, but now their surroundings were lightening, getting brighter and whiter, as though they were heading towards some enormous energy source.

“What _is_ that?” Xavior asked. Or started to ask, because suddenly a roaring noise was filling Asha’s ears, drowning out her thoughts. It sounded like metal ripping, or a great animal groaning in pain. An alarm started wailing, red lights flashing out a warning. A robotic voice blared out over the speakers:

“The destination of this train has changed. The destination of this train has changed. The destination of this train has—”

Asha had both her hands clasped over her ears, but the horrible sound was only growing louder, as though its source was somewhere _inside_ her. Obi and Xavior were both staring at her in abject horror.

“What?” she screamed over the noise. “Can’t you hear it, too?”

They both shook their heads. A trickle of something warm slid down Asha’s palm. She pulled her hands away from her ears. They were covered in blood.

That was when the roof of the train detached from the carriage as if wrenched by a giant hand and flung into the darkness. The wind that funnelled into the train carriage was ferocious, buffeting and pushing at Asha, tearing at her hair and clothes, forcing her eyes shut.

As though removed from her body, she distantly felt the train carriage fall away beneath her, its sudden absence enough to violently turn her stomach. She was picked up by a torrent of time and memory like a ragdoll and hurled backwards, her mind unanchored from her body and dragged through space to a planet that was dead and gone in the future she felt herself slipping away from. She became a scrap of consciousness entangled in the gravitational potential of the planet and was soon pulled to the surface of it in a rush of light and sound and feeling.

The body that had housed her was thousands of years and hundreds of thousands of light years away, but her essence, her very core, was touching down in a field of billowing reeds and wildflowers.

As though through a semi-opaque mist, she felt the shoulder blades of her body writhing against the floor of the train carriage. She heard Obi’s disembodied voice, ‘ _her ears won’t stop bleeding—oh_ god _is she having a seizure?’_ Fighting for clarity, she tried to reconcile the two spaces she was inhabiting with one another and found that it simply wasn’t possible. She made a choice, and Obi’s voice faded away into nothing.

This place, wherever it was… she had been here before.

A jagged skyline reared up before her, voluminous clouds filling the vast expanse of blue with downy pink. Twin rivers ran side by side, glittering gold in the midday sun but never touching. Her palace stood proudly on the hill, its turrets piercing the clouds, its drawbridge flung open. She felt as though she knew all of it intimately: every leaf and rock and droplet of water.

Except—no. That palace wasn’t _hers_. She lived in a single-story apartment with three rooms. Her name was… her name was…

_Your name is Aio M’Atameni. You are the last Queen of Chasca, and today is your coronation._

She blinked, and suddenly she was looking out over an enormous crowd, thousands of faces reverent and rapturous. She was clutching a glittering crystal shield in one hand, and a gleaming sword in the other. A man with two purple eyes and a glowing gemstone set into his forehead was chanting in a language Asha had never heard before but that Aio was intimately familiar with. It was the language of kings.

Asha answered in the same language, nodding her head, and vowing, vowing, _vowing_.

She looked out over the sea of Chascans as the final object of the holy trifecta was placed on her head. Sword, Shield, Crown. A column of light consumed her, blasting through the oculus set into the roof and channelling down hundreds of glass funnels lined with mirrors, to light the flame that would burn until her reign ended. The flame blazed magnificently at the opposite end of the cavernous hall, smokeless and pure, writhing and _alive_. Thunderous applause rained down upon her, and the trifecta of objects warmed against her skin. Asha started to realise that this vision, this shared recollection she was being permitted to inhabit… was the answer to a question she had not yet asked.

She stepped off the dais, and world around her spun with her as its axis. The huge hall became a tense cabinet room full of people preparing for a war. They debated and reasoned, shouted and argued, as they talked of their planet’s history and how it was soaked in bloodshed and imbued with a struggle for power, for ownership of the land, and how much they wanted to put an end to it all but _couldn’t_. As one of the generals ranted about the unnatural abilities displayed by their opponents, Asha gathered information that Aio was already painfully aware of: the country was split into two; with those who possesed the ability to influence the natural world and the things around them on one side, and those who possessed no such power, and had maintained order for centuries by insisting that only royalty could make full use of their gifts on the other. Aio was given a report by a soldier who had witnessed first-hand the _disgusting_ ways the civilians were abusing their powers. Trembling, he recounted how a sweet-faced woman had told their commander that she knew of a safe passage through the mountains, only to guide them through a valley and then raise her arms, calling all the rocks from the mountain to plummet downwards, burying an entire battalion under immovable rubble. Stammering, he reported that just the other week, his friend from another battalion had seen a strong looking man transform into a pack animal and gallop across a field before transforming back into a man and laughing wildly, as though possessed.

This was the story Asha had read about in a history book on a neutral planet in a library at night, over a thousand years into the future.

Aio’s heart sank, and Asha felt her sadness keenly, but it was not the sadness she had been expecting. It felt like despair. Like she desperately wanted them to know the other side of the story, but knew it could not come from her, whilst also knowing that there was no hope of salvation for anyone if it didn’t.

Aio turned away from the soldier and the maps on the table and the war-mongering and bloodlust in the eyes of her generals and left the room, stepping not into a hallway, but into a forest. It was night, the moon blazing coldly down through the leaves of the trees Aio was walking through. Asha looked down at her body and saw that the royal finery was gone, replaced with a simple cloth tunic and trousers, dyed black for stealth. There was a rustle to her left—

A man stepped out of the shadows.

He was not handsome, but his eyes betrayed a solid warmth further emphasised by the squareness of his jaw and the determined set of his mouth. He looked like the kind of man you could depend on.

Aio ran towards him. They embraced. Asha buried her face into his chest and sighed in relief.

“You’re safe. I was so worried,” Aio said. The man smelled like cloves and springtime.

“I told you not to worry about me, I can look after myself,” he replied.

Asha looked up into his eyes and saw with a start that they were amber. In fact, his hair was amber too, a honey coloured, burnished gold that glowed in the moonlight. His skin also had a warm, tawny undertone. Aio was reminded inexplicably of a boy with green eyes and green skin whose smile was mischief and mirth embodied. She shook her head. The thought pricked and hurt, as though it did not belong.

It didn’t, Asha realised, and suddenly the mist descended, and she could feel a thumping pressure on her chest, and hear a boy’s voice yelling wildly, _If I can’t keep this up, her heart will stop and then—_ The voice cut off, choked in a sob, and Asha nearly recognized it, but… couldn’t.

And then the man was speaking again, and Aio was listening so Asha was too.

“The only thing you need to worry about is not being followed,” the man was saying. “We must remember the extent to which this— _us_ —is forbidden. Imagine the people… they would kill us, if they knew.” He tipped her chin up with a finger, and Asha was suddenly struck by the intimacy of this moment and how it did not belong to her. The man’s face flickered, amber eyes turning green, moonlight dappled skin taking on an unmistakable verdure. Black hair flopped over his forehead, curling around his ears.

“The fascist Queen and the tragic leader of a doomed resistance,” Xavior said. He smiled, and his small, pointed canines glinted sharply in the low light. Asha drew in a sharp breath as she realised what this was. As the implications of this clandestine, moonlit meeting came crashing down around her. Her mouth moved, unprompted: “They would kill us both and plunge the planet into a war even more unwinnable than the one we already find ourselves in. A war dictated by how far into barbarism each side was willing to descend.” Aio said, and Xavior’s face melted back into the angry, sad, tired looking man who had been there before.

The man—this leader of the common people who had risen up against the monarch he held in his arms—should have been Aio’s sworn enemy.

Asha’s heart felt fit to burst with the love it felt for him.

There were many more meetings like this.

There was a wedding, too, but not for the couple that professed their love in the woods at night. This wedding was between the queen of a planet that was tearing itself apart, and a man of nearly equal birth whose only apparent sustenance was war. They didn’t speak.

There was a baby, growing inside the queen, whose father was not even close to noble, but who she loved even when she shouldn’t. She hid her growing stomach from all who knew her.

Then, there was the battle that ended it all.

Both sides were depleted forces. Both sides were determined and sick of fighting but had vowed to see it through to the end. The side that had risen from nothing was mourning the assassination of their leader. The other side—the side that had always _had_ everything—was celebrating this. All of them except for their leader, their figurehead; the one that carried his child.

She was kneeling in the prayer room that housed the holy trifecta of objects she believed could win this war, with no idea how to use them, and time trickling away from her like a stream she could not afford to let run dry, when the sword began to blaze with light. Her heart froze in her chest. She had not thought—surely, not yet… Then the shield was shining, and finally, the crown.

This day had been foretold.

 _How strange it is,_ Aio thought _, to find oneself the individual chosen by prophecy. To feel so many unknowns settle on one’s shoulders and leach the autonomy from every decision made prior to this one._

Asha felt the truth of that thought in her bones.

 Aio, Asha, _Aio_ took the objects from the wall and armed herself. Reading the ancient script that adorned the dais above which they had hung, she steadied her mind.

 

_Lost, one must wander,_

_Found, one must plunder,_

_The sword and the shield and the crown,_

_No surrender._

_Trial the first sees spires of ice,_

_an allegiance is forged in desperate times,_

_The second a mountain, an unpayable price,_

_Where wills shall be tested—a battle fought thrice._

_Trial the third, is trial the last,_

_and will reveal all the secrets hid by the past._

_Two warring futures, like blades clashing, sing,_

_The darkness will rule, this dead, godly thing,_

_A guide taken home. A goddess. A ring._

_The Kingdom-less crowns himself; unworthy king._

_And in the end, when the dust has turned golden,_

_conqueror meets conquered, and the last piece is stolen,_

_The knight rises up, but falls and is broken,_

_To doom or to glory, the choice is the chosen’s._

 

She called upon the power that resided within the trifecta and stepped into the resulting column of blazing light. The resulting release of energy flattened much of the surrounding countryside and simultaneously set a prophecy in motion.

Asha felt the energy channelling itself through Aio’s body, using her as a conduit for destruction on a scale that her mind could barely comprehend. An entire planet, destroyed. The trifecta vanished. Sword, shield and crown flung out of the atmosphere and into the nothingness of space to begin the arduous task of waiting. Waiting to be found, or destroyed or forgotten, perhaps.

The column of light disappeared. Aio fell to the floor, unconscious, pulling Asha into the darkness. Just before the darkness became absolute, Asha felt the scene change again.

When the light returned, Asha was giving birth.

Pain. Agony. Anguish. Determination. These were the things she felt, as though all of her being had been distilled into those four qualities and then reduced over time until only the pain was left.

“ _Get it out of me_ ,” Aio screamed, and Asha threw her head back and _pushed_.

When she regained consciousness, the palace was burning, and a child, wet with blood and fluid, lay at her feet. Flames licked along the bases of the marble columns that ringed the room, melting rare jewels from their fastenings and scorching marble with their searing heat. Aio forced herself to stand, cradling her child in her arms, whispering professions of love for the little girl who wouldn’t even remember her face. Asha staggered into the cavernous atrium, supporting the child’s head with her arms and trying to ignore the way it felt like she had been torn in half.

A ship, covered in ash and dented slightly by debris, awaited them in the atrium. Aio opened the hatch. The inside was not fit for the purpose she wanted, so she stepped back and used her ability to mould spoken language to her will, to manifest words into being, to build a pod that would preserve her child.

Her legacy.

She described the frosted glass and the silver plating of the outside, and she gave the object a single command:

“Let her sleep in peace. Let her sleep until there comes a time when she may wake and be safe.”

Then, using the last of her strength, she lifted the pod into the ship and closed the hatch. The ship took off into the night. She could have commanded another into being for herself, but like a captain that goes down with her ship, she knew her place was with her people, even if that place was the afterlife.

The last thing Asha saw before the roof of the palace collapsed was the words of the prophecy, wreathed in flames and shining.

***

When she woke, she woke to the certainty that she had walked in that world before. In another life, perhaps, she had lived there. Died there. Dreamt there. The footsteps she had walked in had been arcane and lonely and larger than life, but on some fundamental level they had belonged to her, and she had claimed them. The words of the prophecy rang out again like a bell in her mind.

_To doom or to glory, the choice is the chosen’s._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Eight

[planet: none]  + [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

 

Sweat poured down Obi’s forehead. His hearts were beating a mile a minute, his hands shook. Asha’s body was lifeless and grey. Her brown skin had lost its usual luster, her full lips were cracked and dry. Her eyes, however, were wide open and bloodshot, moving wildly from side to side as though she could see things that Obi and Xavior couldn’t. Obi was pumping his hands up and down on her chest, trying to keep her heart beating. He stopped and checked her breathing, tried to feel a pulse, tried to find any sign she wasn’t already dead, beside the movements of her eyes, which were slowing by the second.

_Come on, please. Please don’t leave me, not like this._

Her breathing hitched, and she sat bolt upright, heaving in lungfuls of air and retching onto one of the seats.

The relief that flooded Obi was nearly enough to knock him out. He sank into one of the chairs opposite and put his head in his hands.

“Thank _god_.”

Reaching into his satchel, he withdrew a flask full of water and dumped three packets of dissolvable electrolytes into it with shaking hands, before screwing the cap back on and offering it to Asha.

“Here,” he said. “Drink this.”

Asha didn’t turn around.

“Asha?” Obi said.

She was shaking, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs. Curls of hair were plastered to the back of her neck with sweat, and she was shivering. Although, it did look like colour was returning slightly to her skin.

“Do you want us to leave you alone for a bit?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Okay. We’ll come and see you again in ten minutes or so. Make sure you drink the water.”

He looked at Xavior, whose forehead was creased with worry. Motioning for him to move away, Obi put the flask down near her and walked down the carriage away from Asha. She obviously needed space, and some time to process what had just happened. Her life didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, so he decided to give her privacy. Xavior followed him.

They settled into seats half way down the carriage, where they could still see Asha but were no longer crowding her. Obi wanted answers. He turned to Xavior.

“You’re the apprentice Station Master,” he whispered. “Any idea what that was? She’s perfectly healthy to my knowledge, so she shouldn’t be having random seizures. And did you see that… that phantom? Like her face was her face, but not. Like there was the image of a ghost on top of it?”

Xavior nodded. “I saw it.” He leaned back in his chair, his green skin washed out and pale under the fluorescent lights. “It looked like a shared experience vision. The kind induced by very powerful magic.”

Obi winced. Asha was not going to have an easy time accepting that. She liked logic and solvable puzzles. Obi had tried countless times to convince her that the existence of magic, or the unexplainable, was a fact of the universe, but he was yet to succeed.

“I don’t know what to say,” Xavior continued. “It’s… I’ve never—” he broke off. “And the voice on the speakers. Saying the destination of the ship has changed. That shouldn’t be possible. These ships are pre-chartered and would only change course if commanded to do so by the highest of authorities.”

“Asha’s father.”

“Yes.” Xavior agreed. “And then there’s the destination it changed to. Chasca.”

Obi nodded. “I’ve heard about that planet—it’s a legend. There was a war. A huge war, between the high-order mages of Chascan royalty and the lower-ordered civilians. It was a tragedy. They were one of the greatest civilizations of their time, but they wiped themselves out. No one knows why the war even started—that’s the mystery of it, right? That’s why everyone talks about it. I thought the planet was completely destroyed. I thought they were all dead.”

“They are,” Xavior said. “All the Chascans, anyway. But there were a handful of survivors who made it out.”

“Oh?” Obi said, his interest almost piqued. Truth be told, he couldn’t give even half of his attention to the conversation at hand when Asha was crying on the floor. She was huddled in on herself, rocking back and forwards. Everything in him screamed to go and comfort her, but he knew her well enough now to realise that was the last thing she wanted. She wouldn’t know how to deal with being comforted and she would lash out, leaving both of them only feeling worse.

“Well,” said Xavior, “there were a few civilians who made it off Chasca. They didn’t agree with either side and weren’t proud enough to fight for a cause they didn’t believe in, so they decided to abandon ship. The majority of them had affinities rather than outright power. There were a few with lower-order abilities, but not many. Anyway, they escaped just after the outbreak of full out war and sought refuge on an uninhabited, unowned moon. They called it Aetla, and they’ve lived there ever since, keeping an incredibly low profile and slowly changing the atmosphere and surface of the moon into something more habitable with the tech they stole from Chasca before they left.”

Obi nodded. “How do you know so much about this?”

Xavior smiled proudly. “I’m Aetlan. I left as soon as my abilities manifested, and these ladies showed up.” He tapped his horns.

“Did you just call them—actually, you know what, never mind.”

Xavior smiled. He had a roguish smile which didn’t so much hint at trouble as guarantee it. Obi found himself oddly taken by it.

“That was a shock,” Xavior continued, “let me tell you. But both my parents were killed when I was very young, so I had nothing keeping me there. What can I say?” He shrugged. “I wanted adventure.”

He sounded a lot like Asha when he said that, Obi thought. He looked at her again. She was staring into space. Possibly in shock, but the way her eyes were so unfocused… she was looking at something on her implant. Tears were running down her face. He looked away. He would give her five more minutes and then intervene.

“So,” Obi said, “abilities?”

Xavior nodded. “I’m a lower-order visakklik.” He explained. “A mimic. I can change my appearance at will—imitate pretty much anyone.”

Obi blinked. “Seriously?”

Xavior grinned, “Yes, seriously.”

Obi looked at him again, scrutinizing his face. “Prove it.”

A dark look came over Xavior’s face as he opened his mouth to reply, but Obi never got to hear it. Abruptly, the train began to slow down, and the same female voice rang out over the intercom.

“The next stop is Aonia. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. This is a Nautikos line service, going all stations to Chasca.”

Asha jerked her head up to look at them.

“We have to get off here,” she rasped.

Xavior nodded, “It makes sense,” he agreed. “If we stay on the train to Chasca who knows what we might find there. It’s a burned-out shell of a planet. A wasteland.”

Asha visibly flinched. Xavior faltered, and then kept going, electing to ignore it. “Aonia is… well it’s not the _best_ option, but it’s all we have. Plus, the librarians guarantee refuge to anyone seeking it. It’s our best bet.”

Obi nodded. “We could do worse than the home planet of the Diplomats Guild.”

The train was still slowing, and now a screeching sound was filling the air, as though, somewhere beneath them, metal was grating on metal.

“The Diplomat’s Guild?” Asha asked.

Xavior nodded vigorously, “The Aonians belong to no alliances, and are beholden to no one, not even Thracin, on the grounds of diplomatic, conscientious objection and immunity. They’re the universe’s mediators, as well as being philosophers and archivists and obsessed with separating historical fact from fiction.” He grimaced. “There is one thing you should know, though. Before gaining access to the planet you are required to take a test. The Aonians… they value knowledge above any other thing. They crave it. It sustains them. It’s that obsession that fuels their research. You will be asked to make a decision, and it _must_ be the correct one, or you will be denied access and shipped to the nearest transport hub, Xesca. Trust me when I say that place makes Nautikos look fit for the gods. It’s an absolute shithole, a cesspit of crime and disease.”

Asha looked at Obi, eyes wide with alarm. The screeching sound was getting louder, and now a soft, golden-tinged light was spilling through the windows.

“We need to stick together,” Obi said firmly. “If one of us doesn’t make it…”

“If one of us doesn’t make it, we meet on Xesca,” Asha said. Her voice still sounded rough, but her usual tone of command was breaking through. “It’s too risky to try and travel alone, and I’m not done with you yet, Amadi. Xavior—”

“It’s alright, don’t worry about me, I’ve already gained access. I’ve been here before.”

Asha flicked her eyes to Obi, raising her eyebrows almost imperceptibly.

“If you get hauled off to Xesca, make your way to the Spiral. We’ll meet there,” Xavior continued. “And for the test, remember: _knowledge is the most important thing_. Good luck.”

At that moment, the train stopped, screeching to halt.

Suddenly, everything was quiet.

There was nothing outside the windows except light. A white void into which they were expected to walk without fear or hesitation.

Obi held out his hand. Asha took it.

“Obi, I—” she paused. “Something big is about to change. I can feel it. I don’t know how, but I can.”

He nodded and squeezed her hand. A short burst of beeping signaled the imminent opening of the doors, and they both drew in a deep breath.

Light spilled into the carriage, and suddenly there was nothing separating them from the endlessness of the light.

“‘Mind the gap’,” Obi quoted. “ _Christ_.”

Asha snorted.

“Together?” he said.

She nodded. Then she tugged his hand, and they stepped off the edge of the floor and fell into brightness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Nine

[planet: none]  + [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Asha stepped off the spaceship and landed in a forest. She had never seen a forest before.

Her whole body still ached from the intensity of her seizure, but the pain became removed from her, ephemeral and loose, almost.

Trees, impossibly tall and broad and alive, soared upwards to the sky, their branches as wide as main streets, leaves bigger than Asha herself. Sunlight filtered through to the ground, everything golden and quiet. So quiet it hurt.

She sighed, and the forest sighed with her. Leaves fanning and dipping, roots curling and loosening. The forest understood the burden of silence. It was ancient. Ancient enough to remember a time before the silence. A time when chaos ruled, and seedlings grew from bloody rubble instead of damp, rich earth.

Then she was thrown off her feet by a shock wave so deafening and destructive it leveled the forest around her. Her ears rang and her eyes smarted from the shock. The crackling smell of ozone filled her nose and mouth. Swiping at her eyes to clear the dust and black spots, she gazed around, stunned. There was a newly formed crater a few meters to her left, something glimmering darkly at the bottom. Asha scrambled to her feet, picking her way past scorched branches and blasted earth to look cautiously over the side.

It was hard to make out at first. A screwed-up sheet of metal, here. A crumpled wing, there. Cracked glass, a smoking engine. Light panels leaking luminous plasma.

Then she saw the child.

The infant was strapped inside a cryogenics unit, unlike any other Asha had ever seen. It didn’t have any of the usual hallmarks of a fully functioning commercial unit. It looked more like a piece of tech pulled straight from some non-engineer’s head. Like the concept of a cryogenics chamber; frosted glass, a blurry face, coffin sized and _cold_ , without any of the substance; no energy source was visible, no hydraulic stabilizer legs either, and she couldn’t make out the light source that lit the unit from within, it didn’t _look_ like plasma—

There was a hiss. Steam billowed from the chamber. When it cleared, the child’s eyes had opened, and time began to skip, tripping forward. Asha inhaled—

Five seconds became two, become one. An hour folded itself inside that second and shrank to make room for a week. A month halved and then pleated, collapsing the years into crinkles. A decade concertinaed into a memory, and Asha saw it all.

The child was discovered the next day by the local inhabitants of the planet. Creatures the size of transport cars covered in short white fur. They surrounded the crater and pulled open the door of the cryogenics chamber. Time blurred and shifted, and suddenly there was no crater, and the cryogenics chamber was a rusted shell of metal, and a young girl was running through the clearing. The lush green grass came up to knee height, and strange red flowers were clutched in her hand. One of the creatures burst out of the trees, howling and chittering, loping towards the girl. As Asha watched, the creature grew, its fur growing longer, legs lengthening and torso broadening. When she looked back at the girl, she saw that she had grown, too. She looked to be around eleven or twelve, her hair was a shock of white against her brown skin, and her eyes were full of laughter. She ran back across the clearing, towards the creature who had grown up with her, and buried her face in its fur. The scene skipped and jumped, the sky darkening rapidly, and then blazing with stars. Somewhere in the trees, a fire glowed. Asha walked towards it, the crackling getting louder and louder until she realized it wasn’t the popping of wood, but the sound of a community in harmony. The village was small, centered around a massive bonfire. Asha saw the girl and her friend dancing around the flames. The girl had white swirls all over her body. At first, Asha thought it was body paint, or tattoos. Then the shapes started to move, and she watched transfixed, as the girl’s skin rippled and eddied. The creatures watching cooed in delight, stamping their feet and whistling through their small mouths. Daylight broke, suddenly. Then a year had passed, and another, and then time ground to a halt, and Asha was standing in the middle of a warzone.

The jungle was burning. Fighter jets zipped through the canopy, weaving through the trees, dropping wave after wave of incendiary bombs on the village. Strangled screams and gunfire assaulted Asha’s ears, smoke and ash and debris clogged the air, forcing her to pull her shirt over her mouth in an attempt to breath without choking. The girl was being dragged away from one of the huts by a pair of soldiers. Their black and white uniforms told Asha all she needed to know. _The Consortium_. This must have been during the Great War. One of the creatures, fur streaked with grime and dust, stumbled out of the hut. Rearing up on two legs, it swatted at the soldiers, huge paws swiping viciously at their visors.

_Bang!_

The creature slumped to the ground, muddy red blood seeping into the dusty ground. The soldier’s laser rifle smoked. The girl screamed, and her hair turned red, her skin turned red, her eyes flickered and followed suit. She began to rise off the ground. The soldier shouted something into his communication pack. The blades of a nearby hover craft rotated, round and round and round, whipping up leaves and dirt and smoke, turning the thunderous scene into a deafening one. The girl crumpled to the floor, spasming. The soldier behind her gripped a baton crackling with electricity in a white knuckled hand, his face pale behind his visor.

The scene folded in on itself, the burning night rearranging itself into day, the forest rearranging itself into the aftermath of a siege.

The village was empty. The hulking shapes littered on the ground were bodies leaking dusty blood. The girl was nowhere to be seen.

Very suddenly, _violently_ , almost, it occurred to Asha that she had been told this story before. In a kitchen, instead of a forest, and with words, instead of sights and smells and sounds.

_I don’t know which planet I was born on, but I do know where I raised._

_I had a family who loved me, but they were taken from me._

Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, as the world before her ground to a halt.

Smoke hung, immobile in the air. The clouds stopped their furious scudding across the sky. Leaves loosened from trees stilled suddenly, floating in the air. A voice crawled its way up her spine to whisper in her hear.

“Your name is Asha Dhaka,” it hissed. “You are seventeen years old, and the greatest wish of your heart was to fly for you planet. To protect those unable to protect themselves.” The voice was emotionless, as though reading directly from her thoughts. “That is no longer true. Now, the greatest wish of your newly formed, fledgling heart is buried so deeply that even we cannot reveal it to you. That truth, you must discover for yourself.” Not one voice, Asha realized, but hundreds. All speaking in perfect harmony.

They said, “We are the forgers of peace. The harbingers of harmony.”

They said, “We accept only truths. We thrive on Knowledge.”

They said, “Knowledge is the Most Important Thing.”

Then, there was a pause. Asha hadn’t known that quiet could swell. Could burst like a crescendo and expose _true_ silence. Quiet in its purest form.

They said, “Everything you have just witnessed is true. We have granted you this knowledge as we believe it is yours to have.”

Asha’s heart stuttered in her chest. Xavior had mentioned a test. How could she be sure they were telling the truth? To present themselves as so dedicated to pure knowledge and fact, only to be lying to her at the same time seemed the perfect double bluff.

But there was something in the voices that made her doubt. Their voices practically shook with reverence. She simply _believed_ them.

_What does this mean?_

She thought of the girl. The white patterns on her skin. Her red hair and redder eyes. The way she had changed so quickly between one skin and the next. The way it was so similar to Xavior’s ability. The way she was sure it was the same one.

 _Sensakklik._ The word forced its way into her mind, unbidden.

_What does this mean?_

She kept asking herself the same question, but she knew what this meant. Had suspected it for a long time.

A sadness welled up in her, pulsing upwards from some tragic, unplottable place beneath her heart. The sadness swelled and spilt over, and then it was forcing its way up through her throat and out of her eyes as tears.

There is something heart wrenchingly terrifying about admitting things to oneself. Something horrifying and exhilarating and sickening that can only be found with introspection. No one knows a person as well they know themselves, and oftentimes this is more of a curse than a blessing. The secrets that simmer darkly at the edge of one’s consciousness are the worst. They seep into cherished memories and drip an oily film over what is true until one day, on waking, this unamenable thing colors everything one sees and thinks and dreams about.

You forget what it was like before. You don’t believe there will be an after. You scream and rage and cry and sometimes you’re silent and you stare at walls and floors and out of murky windows, and you wonder what it might be like if you just—

And then you ignore the way the world is a little bit darker, the way your shoulders feel like there’s this weight on them, like the air weighs tons, and with every breath you pledge; _no one can know._ And then you admit it to yourself.

“My mother isn’t human.”

_And neither am I._

The voices hummed their approval.

They said, “Asha Dhaka, do you choose to remember what you have seen? Do you choose to claim the knowledge that is your right, and will be your power, your light in the shadow of ignorance?”

“Yes,” she felt like she was going to cry. “I choose to remember.”

She didn’t think that she could ever forget. They could try and wipe her mind with medicine, extract her memories with a scalpel and a torch.

This was not the kind of thing you forgot.

_My mother isn’t human. And neither am I._

“Well chosen,” said the voices. “Welcome to Aonia.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty

[planet: none]  + [Nautikos Space Station]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Obi stepped off the spaceship and into a simpler time. It was snowing.

The Thames wound a liquid silver path through the city. The corrugated metal under his feet was a dim turquoise in the darkness. Laughter echoed through the streets, people singing, laughing, talking.

He was sitting on top of St Paul’s Cathedral. The dome curved away beneath him, a strong wind lifting the collar of his coat, biting and chilling and lung-aching and _home._ Tears stung in his eyes from the cold.

He wondered what year it was. The instinct was muscle memory.

 _Muscle memory_. The words meant three very different things to Obi. Sometimes they conjured to mind dark streets on darker planets and the knowledge that _invisibility equals survival—stay out of sight if you want to live._ His thoughts would flicker down the well-worn neural pathways of determination and endurance and _just run_ , and regret.

 _Muscle memory._ Sometimes the words conjured to mind other things. Warmer, deeper, softer feelings that recalled laughter and belonging and a reminder that those things could be _easy_. _Muscle memory_. Eyes meeting across a room, a wink, a brow lifted in answer—mocking, but not really, _who, me?_ — _Yes, you_ , a grin replies. The corner of Obi’s mouth lifted with the ghost of a smile. The memory of one woven into the muscles of his cheeks.

 _(Muscle memory_. He remembers running his hands up George’s back, the muscles under his shirt firm, shifting and contracting and moving under hot, damp skin.)

Taking a deep, painfully cold breath, he pried his fingers from the railing he was clutching and let gravity pull him off the side of the dome. As he fell, the night was reduced to a blur of darkness and yellow lights, water glistening off cobbles, reflecting the stars.

He used his prosthetic arm to brace his fall, which wasn’t very far—just onto the roof of the main cathedral hall—and rolled into a crouch. The eaves of the cathedral were sturdy, and he had done this countless times before. Grabbing onto the overhang of the roof, he hung for a single second, then dropped quietly past one storey of columns, their Corinthian flourishes threatening to snag on his coat. He took a moment to breathe and then he did it again, the marblework slipping past him as he rushed towards the ground. The floor met his feet with a muffled thud. Obi smiled and looked forward, the maze of streets all but begging him to take solace in their gloominess. The clandestine quality of the light was the light that lit his dreams more often than not.

London at night was a gorgeous, insidious thing. He hadn’t forgotten.

_Why was he here, though?_

The thought slipped from his mind like smoke through his bare hands, trickling away on the breeze.

_To see George, of course._

The thought didn’t feel like his own, but it sounded like his. Dismissing a vague feeling of unease, he started walking.

A newspaper blustered its way toward him, caught on a gust of wind. He stopped it with his boot and picked it up. The first thing he checked was the date: 10th  of April, 1812.

The headline stopped his heart in his chest, squeezed the air from his lungs.

PRINCE REGENT GEORGE IV MARRIED TO GERMAN PRINCESS: CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, 8th APRIL.

Suddenly he felt as though he were falling, plummeting from the edge of something jagged and into a dark and tossing sea. The paper slipped from his grasp.

He cursed, then swung the now blinkered direction of his thoughts violently onto the idea of Buckingham House, and then to the door of George’s rooms. He focused all of his will and want on that place and then he stepped forward.

When he put his foot down, he was exactly where he wanted to be. (This was not something he could normally do. He didn’t question the sheer impossibility of it. _He was here to see George_.)

The door to the Prince Regent’s rooms swung open.

Deja vu was a rare occurrence in Obi’s life, but he felt it fully then. Wide, green eyes met his, and Obi swore his heart nearly stopped. But then he looked down at the hand that was clutching the doorframe from the inside and saw a ring, and suddenly the illusion was shattered. This wasn’t a jubilant reunion. This was…

Well, he didn’t know what this was.

George looked tired. He held his back straight, and his shoulders squared, but the dark smudges under his eyes and the tightness by his mouth betrayed him.

“Is it true?” Obi asked.

George looked so empty, so heartbroken and absent, that Obi could barely stand to look at him. Could barely stand to look away.

“I didn’t have a choice.” His voice was vacant.

 _I’m losing him_ , Obi thought.

“I was spectacularly drunk for it, if it’s any consolation.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “Obi, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Please, don’t, I—this is _my_ fault,” he pulled George into a fierce hug, fingers finding the soft hair at the base of his neck, and sliding up, pressing George’s face gently to his chest, as though he could absorb him directly into his heart and keep him there. “I should have been here.”

Obi froze when he felt hot tears on his clavicle.

“ _Oh,_ George—"

“I don’t want to wake up again without you. I don’t want _him_ to show up again and ruin everything. The way he talks, I—I can’t keep… I don’t know how long I can keep this up for.” He looked down at his hands.

“Who’s _him_? Wake up? What do you—oh.” Obi looked around and saw the fuzzy edges of a dream. The words written on the document next to him were nonsensical, the paintings merely vague swathes of colour, and the view beyond the window dusky, uncertain twilight, when he was sure it had been the middle of the night when he’d arrived. “This isn’t,” he exhaled slowly. “This isn’t real?”

“No,” George replied. “You never are.”

Obi felt that like a blow to his chest—ribs broke and hearts cracked from the guilt that cannoned into him.

He cupped George’s cheek with his palm, lifting his head so that they were looking into each other’s eyes.

“George, I’m always real for you. I know—believe me I _know­­_ —I haven’t been here. I left you when you needed me most, and I will never forgive myself for that. But—you mean worlds to me. This universe would be nothing to me without you in it.”

“Obi, I _miss_ you,” George said. His voice sounded broken. Obi couldn’t stand it. _He’d_ done this. “I feel like half a person without you here, which is insanity, because I lived so much of my life without you, but ever since you left the first time I’ve felt your absence. I feel it when I begin laugh and stop because you’re not there to laugh with me. I feel it when I wake up and wonder with a thrill what absurdity you’ll have dreamt up for us to do, and then remember I won’t be doing anything of the sort. I feel it when I look for you in crowds, and I feel it when halfway through the motion of looking, I realize I’ll be looking forever, because you aren’t coming home, are you? I feel it, and it _hurts_.” His eyes were nothing short of beseeching.

As Obi studied the boy—the nearly-king, the desperate man—that he had given half of his soul to on a cold, and windy night as he lay dying, as he lay wishing with all of his heart to pass from this world to the next, he admitted to himself that he’d done many things wrong in his life. He’d lied to himself and to others. He’d left and kept leaving. He’d been selfish and thoughtless and let the streets make him harsher than he would have been in another life.

He resolved there and then that this thing, this acutely profound thing they shared would never make it anywhere near that list.

“You won’t be looking forever, George,” he promised. “I’m coming back. I swear I am.” He meant it more than he’d ever meant anything, but that didn’t make the miles between them any less, didn’t make the pain of his missing any better. “I’ll come back to the morning that I left, and then none of this will have happened. You will be whole again, and I will be here, and you won’t have to hurt anymore. You’ll commission a palace for us like you said you would and we’ll be _fine._ I’ll be the only one who remembers what happened, what—what I did to you… but if that’s the price to pay for your happiness then I _will_ pay it.” His throat felt as raw as if he’d been screaming, though his voice hadn’t risen above a whisper the whole time. He hated this. Hated that it wasn’t real but felt like it. Hated how much George meant to him and how much he wanted more. Hated himself for leaving, whilst knowing that he would be forced to do it again.

“Obi, you won’t be the one paying.”

He hated that he flinched at that. Hated that he knew it was true.

Yes, his words had been noble, and the sentiment behind them true, but he was not the one who had stretched out hopefully cupped palms in anticipation of an adventure and had instead received a country and a crown and a _war_ and a boy to love who left and left and _left_. He knew that while he was the one who would remember, and would suffer in this knowledge, he was not the one who would live the suffering, and he knew that there was a difference.

“I’m sorry.”

There was a pause, the sound between heartbeats swelling like a crescendo, building and rising, until it broke like the taught skin of a peach and _quiet_ spilled into the space between them. The space that wasn’t really much space at all.

“I know.”

George looked calmer, at least, Obi thought. His eyes were downcast, lashes casting diffuse shadows on his cheeks. He looked up—

_I miss you I miss you I miss you_

 —then flickered a glance at Obi’s mouth. If Obi had blinked, he would have missed it.

He hadn’t blinked.

They pushed forward at the same time, hands reaching, eyes fluttering shut. George’s mouth was soft and insistent against Obi’s. His hands, where they wound around Obi’s neck were warm and strong. The gentle pressure of George’s chest against his was nearly enough to heal his heart. George’s mouth opened and for a few, glorious seconds, Obi couldn’t think. Feeling was alright too, though, and there was _so much_ to feel. George’s happiness was apparent in the way he smiled against Obi’s mouth, in the way his fingers gripped Obi’s hip under his t-shirt. He could feel it again in the way the rest of the dream disappeared, George’s attention focused solely on Obi. The nothingness of their surroundings pulsed, tuned in to George’s feelings. Obi felt drunk on this moment; the sweet kisses, the sighs and the gasps. The way George pulled back, resting his forehead on Obi’s. The way he told Obi he loved him, like Obi was worthy of such a thing. The way this was all a dream, and yet possibly the realest thing he had ever felt in all his life. And, because it was a dream but felt like the promise of a future, and because Obi could never lie to George, and because keeping things from him wasn’t part of the way this thing between them worked;

“I love you, too.”

It would have been worth it for nothing. Would have been worth it for floating motes of dust and empty air, but the way that George’s eyes lit up made Obi sure that he would be telling George he loved him for as long as he was able. As George pushed Obi back and moved to straddle his lap, he realized he would have tattooed his love for this boy across his forehead if he’d had the means. Then George shifted his hips, grinning, and Obi considered turning to religion. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them he was nowhere, and he was alone. His face was flushed. His heart was racing.

_I told him I loved him. I—_

“Obi Amadi, _Arἳcoaryuἠ._ You are barely nineteen years old, and yet you have seen the centuries turn more times than you can count.” Voices rang out in the silence. He felt the pulse of their words in the soles of his feet, in the palms of his hands. “Your heart wishes for so many things that even we cannot untangle them. You want to be brave. You want to be noble and strong and kind and true. You wish to be worthy of love, you wish to be cured. All of these things are true, and yet the truest thing is this: you are afraid.”

Obi bowed his head.

They said, “We are the forgers of peace. The harbingers of harmony.”

They said, “We accept only truths. We thrive on knowledge.”

They said, “Knowledge is the Most Important Thing.

Then they were silent. Obi remembered; _green eyes, brown hair, a smile like the sun. A heavy heart, a golden crown—_

They said, “Everything you have just witnessed is true. We have granted you this knowledge as we believe it is yours to have.”

_A ring._

Obi had known it was true. He didn’t know how he possibly could have known this, but he believed in intuition, especially when it came to George and the way he believed their souls had been one, once.

“Obi Amadi, do you choose to remember what you have seen? Do you choose to claim the knowledge that is your right, and will be your power, your light in the shadow of ignorance?”

He thought of George’s solid warmth, the way his own confession had felt to say out loud.

_I’m sorry._

_I know._

In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

“Well chosen,” said the voices. “Welcome to Aonia.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-One

[planet: Earth]  + [city: London]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 _It’s really better if I show you,_ Alarick had said.

Now George was standing in an alleyway behind an antiques shop on the shadier, damper, decidedly more derelict side of town, waiting for Alarick to join him and finally reveal the key part of his plan, which he could apparently buy at an antiques store for the modest sum of fifty pounds.

A pipe creaked, dripping grey water onto George’s previously pristine boots. He had been waiting for near twenty minutes now and the damp was starting to seep into places damp should never seep.

“Ah, good, you’re still here.”

George turned around at the sound of Alarick’s voice at the mouth of the alley.

“Lucky for you,” he replied. “Could you have taken any longer?”

Alarick shrugged. “Artifact sourcing is a delicate business. I have to get acquainted with each item before purchasing. Rules out any room for error.”

George nodded, “Right. Because that makes complete sense.”

“Here we go then.”

Alarick pulled a notebook from the sturdy brown paper bag he held in hands. It was crammed with handwriting, each page filled with the same faint, spidery scrawl. Alarick flicked through it, pausing on a few pages to read what was written there. George caught a glimpse of what looked like the draft of a letter. A love letter, if the blotchy tearstains and over-bold proclamations of dedication were anything to go by. It was addressed to one ‘ _John Seymour_ ’ and signed at the end by an _Emilia Ainsworth._ The faded date at the top read: the 15th of January 1752. It seemed to George like an intensely private thing, something that ought to be tied up with string and kept in the back of a bureau or a vanity table. Certianly not something to be held under unflinchingly scrutiny by two strangers in a damp, grimy alleyway on the less reputable side of town. Although, there was a strange delicacy to the way Alarick held it. Like a jeweler holds an uncut diamond, he seemed aware of an innate value in the object that remained unviewable to the untrained eye.

Then Alarick whispered something that sounded like a question, and promptly set the notebook on fire.

George let out a strangled cry, “What are you _doing_?”

Alarick looked at him. “Wait and see,” was all he said.

The letter crumbled to ash, smoke curling upwards into the grey sky until it was indistinguishable from the clouds. A gust of wind stirred the ashes, blowing them up into the sky.

Except, the air was still. It was a humid day, with damp in the air and rain gathering on the horizon. There was no wind to speak of, and yet…

The ashes whipped faster, spiraling upwards into the air like a contained hurricane—a tornado in miniature.

A shape started to form from the ground upwards. Billowing skirts, a dainty hand, a laced-up bonnet and big, doe eyes. A woman rose out of the ash, her shape startlingly solid and corporeal. She was dressed in clothes that had been fashionable half a century earlier, and was looking at them serenely, as though being recalled from the dead was merely par for the course in the life of a ghost.

George’s jaw dropped.

“Ma’am,” said Alarick, tipping his hat. “We were hoping you could help us in saving the city.”

The woman’s eyes widened, thick lashes fluttering in distress. “Whatever is the matter with the city?” she asked. “I do hope nobody is in immediate danger. How may I help?”

“Well,” Alarick replied, “we need time. As much as you can spare. But there are consequences—”

“Of which I am aware,” she said, cutting him off. “I will cease to be partly tethered to this earth via my diary, and so I will at last be free to join my John in Heaven in my entirety. I’ve been waiting for this, and I thank you, kind traveler, for allowing me this opportunity.”

Alarick bowed.

“I can offer you three days’ worth of minutes,” she said. “For that is how long it took me to fill that diary with letters after John was killed and I was left alone.”

George felt choked with emotion. She looked so young, barely nineteen, the same age as himself when the love of her life had died. There had been a time when she had existed on this earth and he had not, and she had borne the pain as she knew she must. How strong she must have been, he thought. _I do not think I could bear it_.

“There is no way you could know this,” he said, stepping forward. “but I am to be king of England.”

She looked at him, eyes widening even further. She moved to curtsey, but George held up his hand.

“I wanted to thank you personally and commend you for your courage. This country will not forget you, Emilia. I will not let them.”

Her chin trembled, but she did not let the tears fall. Instead she held out one hand, offering it to Alarick. Her pale palm of ash settled in his battle scarred one and grasped it. A pulse of pale light passed between the two, and Alarick’s eyes glowed brightly under their lids, light spilling out from beneath his short eyelashes. He inhaled sharply and let go. When George turned back to Emilia she was fading. The ash that formed her skirts was flaking away, crumbling on the nonexistent breeze to float upwards to the clouds. She waved at them, smiling, ashen tears finally spilling down her cheeks. The last of her blew away, leaving behind the faint smell of smoke and char, but also… wildflowers and roses. George turned back to Alarick.

“It’s not enough, is it?”

Alarick shook his head, his eyes dark beneath a furrowed brow. “No.” He pulled out a signet ring. “But we have today, at least, to gather more.”

“The summer solstice is in two months,” George said. “How are we going to gather that in a day? Emilia gave us three days, but what if that’s the most we get? What if we summon another a ghost and the most they can offer is twenty minutes? Or an hour? I don’t—”

Alarick held up a hand.

“We have to try. If we don’t try we have failed before we have even started.”

The signet ring flashed in the light, before Alarick’s hand clenched around it and it melted, dripping through his fingers like water.

As the gold rushed around their feet, gathering in volume, George sighed. _Time makes fools of us all_ , Obi had once said. George was beginning to agree.

 

***

In the end they gathered a little over a week and a half in borrowed time. Emilia granted them the most, the rest trickling in in hours and odd days until all the light had faded from the sky and George was sitting dejectedly in a puddle of rain water, waiting while Alarick talked to a young boy conjured by an old spinning top.

“I’ll give you seventeen minutes, mister,” said the boy. “That’s the longest my top ever spun for, ain’t that good?”

Alarick sighed. “Yes, my lad. That’s mightily impressive. Thank you.”

The boy tipped his cap and dissolved back into wooden paint-flecked splinters that blew away on the breeze.

George yawned. A fat raindrop splattered on his cheek. A rat ran over his leg.

“That’s it,” Alarick said, sitting down next to him. “A week and three days from twenty-five forgotten souls. Not even close to enough.”

“We would have to raid the whole city to get enough time.”

They were silent. The rain pattered softly against the paving stones. George could hear a carriage clattering down the road.

“Or,” Alarick said suddenly, sitting up straight, “we could raid the Tower of London.”

George looked at him blankly, “The Tower of London. Why would we do that?”

“The amount of time a spirit is able to give directly correlates to the power of the Artifact, which, as I told you, is generated by the amount of sentimental energy it possesses.”

“And you think there’s something in the Tower of London that could get us the time that we need?”

Alarick was smiling now, and _oh_ , George did not like that look.

“I _know_ there is,” he said, grinning. “Several very shiny, very valuable somethings, that mean a hell of a lot to a hell of a lot of people. Think diamonds.”

George steepled his fingers together and closed his eyes. “We are _not_ stealing the Crown Jewels.”

Alarick smiled wider, “I think we are.”

“You are _insane_. I am the acting monarch of this country. I cannot have a part in a plot that aims to take the crown jewels from the tower with the explicit objective of having them destroyed!”

“Think about it,” Alarick said. “You keep your precious jewels, leaving me to scrabble for scraps of time that ultimately, will not be enough to save this place that you have sworn to protect. The solstice arrives, and you are defenseless. He wins. You don’t.”

George looked down. He could not allow it to come to that. Would not allow it.

“Or,” Alarick continued, “you come with me to the tower. We destroy a single piece of admittedly very valuable jewelry and summon a monarch capable of granting us decades worth of time. You gather all the defenses you need and then _you_ win. Which do you choose?”

It wasn’t a choice, really. Victory or death. Not even peaceful death, but death lived in service to a god who saw him as nothing more than a curiosity. Something to be used.

 _I came to this place, this city, because I wanted more,_ Iel had said. _And you look a lot like more to me._

George would cut him off at every chance. He would do whatever it took.

_You will sweat blood and break your heart time and time again to ensure this nation’s preservation. How can you be sure you possess the courage and the will?_

Courage. Will. He realized now that these things were, to an extent, immaterial. He didn’t need either. All he needed was fear. Fear to motivate him and animate limbs that would not move under the weight of responsibility. Fear to spur him into action and fear to stick his shaking his hands onto the hilt of a sword and draw it. And he was so scared.

Alarick looked at him. “Well?”

“Well, I supposed I want to win. But not—not just that. I want to do what’s right. I want to be the king these people deserve.”

He thought briefly of the advice Aristophanes had given to the people of Athens with Aeschylus as his mouthpiece; think of the enemy’s land as theirs and their land as the enemy’s. In other words, attack the Peloponnese and accept losing Attica to the Spartans.

If he accepted the loss of the jewels as collateral damage in this war, then he could focus on his campaign against Iel. It made sense.

“Alright,” he said. “On one condition.”

Alarick lifted an eyebrow, “What?”

“We will not so much as breathe in the direction of my mother’s nuptial crown. Were it to be destroyed, she would be furious, and I would simply be unable to live with myself.”

Alarick laughed gruffly, “Granted.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Two

[planet: Aonia]  + [The Palace of Mirrors ]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

When Asha opened her eyes, she found herself lying on her back in a hall whose walls were made of shining mirrors. Huge mirrors and tiny ones, ornately framed and crammed together in a way that should have felt claustrophobic, but only made the room feel infinitely large as the mirrors reflected each other and the room’s occupants, creating hundreds of other rooms within the mirrors themselves; the hall turned inside out and upside down and framed in gold.

A looming figure stood over her, cloaked entirely in white. _This must be one of the scholars Xavior had mentioned_. She scrambled to her feet.

“Greetings,” said the figure, but Asha barely heard them. She was too preoccupied with their face. The sentient’s features had halted Asha completely, as he didn’t _have_ any. The only things on his face were eyes. Lots and lots of eyes. Which meant…

“How are you talking?”

The eyes blinked.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said “That was horrifically rude. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, do you—”

“My voice is projected through a miniscule speaker implanted in the skin of my throat. That’s why it can sound muffled. My kind have evolved past the need for speech, but your fragile body is unfortunately unequipped to translate my telepathic waves into thought, and so, I have a speaker that does it for you. Don’t worry, it is the way with all the Uninitiated.”

She remembered what Xavior had said. The Aonians don’t view the universe as being populated by sentients comprising billions of different races, they only see the Initiated and the Uninitiated. Initiated into their cult of elitist, warrior librarians, that is.

Xavior. _Obi._ Had he made it? Had he passed the test?

Asha tried to smile at the elitist, warrior librarian standing in front of her.

“Have you seen my friends? Did they both make it off the ship? I came with them. I need to talk to them.”

The Aonian nodded, “This way, please.”

Asha followed him out of the hall with all the mirrors and into a passageway. Something on the ceiling caught her eye and she looked up. Billowing clouds painted in cream and pink gold stared back at her, hooded figures in diaphanous robes sprawled amongst them, holding books bound in scarlet, a third eye faintly visible on each of the foreheads, everything beautifully rendered in rich colour.

“What _is_ that?” Asha breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

“That is art,” the Aonian explained. “A painting of our origin, of our gods. Of everything we strive to accomplish.”

“Art,” Asha repeated, awed, and the Aonian looked at her strangely.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away for many minutes.

Though, when the silence became too much Asha had to ask, “So, what’s your name?”

“I do not have one. Names are immaterial to the Initiated. They only weigh us down.”

Asha wondered what kind of life you had to live for even your name to be a burden. Though, she supposed, if the journey toward enlightenment was your life’s purpose then the removal of dead weight made sense. Surely you had to be light as a feather to ascend past the realm of the known.

A door opened to their left, revealing shelves upon shelves of books. Asha’s jaw dropped, but a line of figures cloaked in red shuffled out, obscuring her view.

“Those are the acolytes exiting the library,” the Aonian said. “They tremble on the edge of Initiation but must first take the ultimate test at the Altar of Knowledge. They have been studying for forty years, now.” He tapped one of the figures on the shoulder, “What is the mandate?”

The figure did not stop, but whispered in a toneless recitation that was soon picked up by the others:

“Knowledge is power. It must be obtained and preserved no matter the cost to the individual.”

Asha frowned. This was decidedly creepy.

As the last of the acolytes trudged off down an echoing white stone hallway, and the door to the library thudded shut, Asha fell in behind her guide as they rounded a corner and emerged into a sunny courtyard, columns studding the perimeter to form a colonnade under which groups of acolytes were being taught.

“Asha!”

Obi’s voice rang out into the peaceful garden, and Asha had to stifle a laugh as he was immediately shushed by at least seven white-robed figures tending to the strange plants or reading on benches.

He ducked his head, but grinned furiously, and bounded over.

“You made it! Thank god, I was starting to worry. What was your vision like?” he grimaced. “Actually, you know what, let’s not talk about that right now. Have you seen Xavior?”

Asha blinked.

“No, I haven’t seen him yet. And yes. I agree, _later_.”

Obi winced. “That bad?”

She made a noncommittal noise and averted her eyes.

“Fair enough, do you—oh look, there he is.”

Asha turned around.

Xavior was walking towards them, a loose white shirt billowing slightly in the breeze, travelling trousers rolled up to his knees, feet bare and green against the cream-coloured stone. He looked ridiculously relaxed, yet casually excited. Asha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. They would wait for him to come to them.

Obi laughed quietly next to her.

“Not everything is a pissing contest, you know.”

“Shut up.”

Xavior finally reached them. Grinning, he spread his arms.

“So, friends, what do you think?”

Asha shrugged, “S’alright.”

“Come one, you two,” Obi cautioned. “Play nice. We’re supposed to be a united front. Can’t have the soldiers bickering in the ranks.”

Asha raised an eyebrow. Obi shrugged.

“It would be better,” Asha said, “if there was food. Lots and lots of food. So much food that I can eat until I feel sick, just like they do in the BroadCast Films. Take me to the food, wherever that may be,” she said. Then, “Please?”

“I second that,” said Obi.

“Really, we should plan our next move,” said Xavior. “Routes and supplies…”

They stared at him.

“Transport,” he continued hesitantly. “That kind of thing.”

“Listen. Flavia—”

“It’s Xavior. You _know_ that it’s Xavior—"

“Whatever.” Asha waved a hand, trying desperately not to smile. “By now I’m sure you’ve gathered that I’m not a very nice person. Well, when I’m literally starved—the last thing I ate being your mentor’s rancid excuse for a nourishing meal, mind you—I’m even less disposed towards kindness. Especially as it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m sure you understand. Now, if you want this partnership between the three of us to work, you will find me vast quantities of consumable goods, or I will riot.”

“She will,” Obi supplied, looking sheepish.

Xavior looked between the two of them, astonished at finding himself thoroughly ganged up on. He opened his mouth, but Asha raised an eyebrow at him and so he closed it.

“Canteen’s this way,” he said.

“Fucking finally.”

 

***

After filling herself with a grotesque amount of food and sleeping for just over four hours, Asha had suggested Obi spar with her. She had told him it was to make sure she kept her technique sharp and her reflexes up to par, but really…

“You just want to hit something,” he said.

She smiled, shrugging. “You’ve got me there.”

“I have sufficient bruising already, thanks. Surely there is a prop or something you can use. A practice dummy, perhaps? A willing yet intellectually stunted Initiate? Someone just as stupidly reckless as yourself?”

It was at that moment that Xavior very helpfully walked past.

Obi groaned, “Asha you can’t—”

“Perfect.” She grabbed his arm. “You’re coming with me.”

“Okay.”

Obi spluttered, “What you’re just going to say ‘okay’? She could be dragging you off to kill you!”

Xavior smirked. “You underestimate me.”

Obi put his head in his hands. “You know what?” he asked weakly. “I’ll leave you two lunatics to it.”

And now, here they were. A deserted courtyard with a ring at its center, sawdust clinging to bare feet and sweat prickling out of pores in a satisfying catharsis.

Asha lunging forward to initiate the round.

Xavior dodged, pivoting on the foot closest to the incoming blow, and vanishing from Asha’s line of sight. She didn’t wait for him to retaliate. Using the momentum from her aborted punch, she dived to the ground, rolling underneath his revenge strike and popping back to her feet, bouncing lightly on her toes, ready for the answering blow.

“Is that it? Don’t make me regret asking you.”

Xavior smiled. “I can make anyone regret anything.”

“And that is something you’re proud of?”

“You bet.”

He lunged, she ducked, his fist swung around unanticipated, lodging into her side and driving the air from her lungs. Nausea rose, but she repressed it, sidestepping his next attack using the same pivot he had. She grabbed his arm as he lurched past her, adding to the momentum and effectively throwing him to the edge of the ring.

“You land one punch and you get cocky,” she tutted. “How does the dust taste, slacker?”

Xavior twisted his head to look at her from where he sprawled, spread-eagled on the ground. He spat out a few errant wood shavings.

“Delicious.”

Asha smiled, and offered a hand. Xavior scoffed.

“Thanks, princess, but I can manage.”

Asha stiffened immediately. One word, and she could feel her heartbeat in her skin, doubling, tripling—

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” she replied, but it was too quick and they both knew it.

Xavior shrugged, unbothered.

“Tosìn used to talk about you all the time, you know,” he said, changing the subject. “He didn’t know you existed, but he would always… hypothesize about the perfect little girl he could have had. He said you would have been a spitfire, like your mother was. Said you would be smart. Like, terrifyingly clever, because he was, and he knew it. He also said you would be kind because no daughter of his wouldn’t be.”

She looked at him. “He said that?”

Xavior nodded cautiously. “He didn’t know you, but he… he loved you.”

A blush rushed to his cheeks, flushing its way down his neck, dark green and wildly lovely. The sharp cut lines of his body were illuminated in the afternoon light, his hair damp from exertion, expression solemn, but curious too, and open. His horns poked through the loose curls, odd and whimsical—like a snake’s tongue in the mouth of a cat, or a sparrow with the eyes of a wolf and the appetite to match. His cheeks were darkened too, and his mouth slightly parted, one canine slipping past full lips.

She realized then that he would almost certainly be a problem for her.

Attraction was not entirely foreign to Asha. She had felt it fleetingly on Gharaan; loaded stares across a smoke-choked factory room. The angle of a jaw, the curve of an eyelash, broad shoulders and strong hands, or soft hips beneath a uniform. It had never been entertained, never acted on. There hadn’t been… room for things like that in the life they had carved out for themselves. The barren sand between each frigid oasis had been too desolate for a thing so delicately alive as love to survive, and the towering temples of the pretender gods that flanked them had always had such a knack for inciting hatred. Now Xavior looked at her, his head cocked to the side, smile small but dangerous and she felt the stirrings of something inside her that did not belong in this context. Or at least, something she was not equipped to deal with at the present time.

“Take a picture,” Xavior said, running his hands through his hair. “It’ll last longer.”

Asha started, then glared at him. “I was not—how dare—”

“It’s okay. If I were you, I’d stare too.”

Asha rolled her eyes and feinted to the right before landing a solid kick to his left side. She could almost hear Obi’s voice in her head: _I suppose that’s how you show affection, is it? Good for you._ With horror, Asha felt a hand wrapping around her ankle and pulling. She shrieked, hopping forward on one leg, trying in vain to get free. Xavior grinned at her, cheeks flushed, and Asha used his momentary lapse in concentration to hop into his space and sweep his legs out from under him; a final kamikaze move that sent both of them crashing down to land in a tangled heap on the ground. Knees knocked against noses and against other knees. Elbows jabbed into ribs and Asha became acutely aware that Xavior’s torso was now wedged between her legs. She smiled sweetly at him, before squeezing her thighs together.

He let out a choked laugh. “Can’t… can’t breathe, Asha—”

“Say you yield and I’ll stop.”

“N—Never,” he gasped out, cheeks turning darker by the second.

“Say… you… _yield_.” She punctuated each word with more pressure, until finally—

“ _I yield_.”

She released him, wriggling away, desperately trying to forget what his body heat had felt like, or what he had looked like, helpless and flushed beneath her.

She felt heat rise in her own cheeks and turned away.

Xavior’s footsteps retreated to the other side of the room, towards the water fountain.

“So, that was intense,” he said.

She threw a glance at him, waiting for him to mock her.

“It’s cool that you take this seriously. I like that about you.”

Oh. She hadn’t expected that.

Her lack of a reaction flustered him. His cheeks darkened, and he averted his eyes, “Not that—I didn’t—I just meant,” he paused, “I just meant that your dedication is… admirable. I could do with being more like you in that regard.”

She nodded slowly.

“And if… if we really are going to do this, go to A’lkari, I mean, then I’m glad I’m going with you,” he rubbed the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed. “I trust you to have my back, so just know that I’ve got yours. _Whatever_ happens. You can count on me.”

She nodded again. She didn’t know what to say.

Pulling her goggles back around her neck awkwardly, she cleared her throat, “I’ll see you later. Same time tomorrow. Don’t be late.” She wished she had made it sound more like an amicable invite than a command, but she wasn’t sure she even knew how.

She left.

The walk back to her room was long enough to cool the flush in her cheeks as well as her rising temper, but she did not go to sleep. Lying on her bed, she stared at the ceiling. The striations in the stone looked almost like lightning bolts. Forcefully, she was reminded of her vision. A pillar of light. The sword, the shield, the crown. Sacrifice. Prophecy. She remembered standing in the circle of Xavior’s arms in a moonlight dappled forest and feeling clandestine, yet safe and wholly herself. She remembered the weight of a planet’s fate on her shoulders, the slick, agonizing slide of childbirth—

Remembered what it felt like to be kissed. Remembered that she’d liked it.

She opened her eyes, not having realized she’d ever closed them in the first place and stood up. Information was what she needed, and this was certainly the place to get it. All she needed was a favor.

 

***

 

It was night. Asha crept through the hallways, her bedsheets clutched in her arms, using the glow thrown by the bobbing spheres of light that floated in the hallways to duck in and out of shadows and make her way to the door she had passed by earlier that day. The one that led to the library.

She tried the handle. It was locked, of course. She grunted in irritation before pulling two slim needles from her sleeve and inserting them into the lock. The Aonians were still using analogue security, something which she found as highly questionable as she did predictable; they were so bound by rules and order in this place that it stood to reason that no one would dare to break them. She jimmied the needles, slipping past each pin like she’d picked it a hundred times. The bolt slid out of the catch, and she pushed the door open, sliding the picks back up her sleeve with a satisfied smile.

The library was deserted, stacks stretching so far up towards the ceiling that their tops could not be seen. The air smelled like leather and paper and book binding glue, as well as something that could have been ink or possibly secrets. Wrapping her blankets tighter around her shoulders, she pulled out the directions she had been given her and plunged into the darkness.

Earlier that day she had gone looking for the same Initiate who had escorted her back to her friends after the vision-test-thing. They had been tending to the plants in the courtyard when she found them.

“Hey Red,” she had said.

“I am nameless,” Red had replied. “I answer to no title.”

“You just answered to Red, though, so I mean…”

“What do you want, child?”

She smiled, “I’d like directions. To the history section of the Library. There’s something I’d like to research.”

“The ‘history section’ as you so charmingly put it, takes four days to cross on foot. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Oh, um, what about Chascan history? You know, of the planet Chasca?”

Red looked at her oddly. “You’ll be wanting what I suppose you might call the ‘myths and legends section’ for that one. Hold on.” Red pulled out a piece of paper and a strange looking writing utensil that resembled a fork more closely than a stylus and began to scribble something down.

“Oh no need for that,” Asha said hastily. “Just tell me. I have a great memory.”

Eyeing her skeptically, Red began to recite an alarmingly complex and extended set of directions to the section of the library she needed. Half way through, Asha subtly turned on the recording function of her implant and zoned out. Five minutes later, Red had stopped speaking and was bidding her farewell.

“… and good riddance.” Asha heard Red mutter as an afterthought as they parted ways.

She had laughed all the way to her rooms.

 

***

 

Now, Asha was shivering. She had been tramping through the library for just over an hour, the stacks getting more and more unkempt and wild the further in she went. The temperature was dropping too, for some reason, and more than once she was certain she saw something scurry in-between the shelves, forcing her to avert her eyes lest she catch too close a glimpse.

Finally, she turned the last corner. This stack was dusty, the bookshelf showing signs of rot and decay. The book closest to Asha was in terrible condition, its spine hanging off like a lip of fungus from a tree trunk. Praying she would find what she needed in good condition, she hurried down the aisle, eyes scanning spines and peeling labels.

She found the book at the end of the shelf, the slim, plainly bound translation volume sitting next to it. _A Complete History of Chasca_ read the spine. Asha eased the original out of its place, blowing the dust off it, and resisting the urge to cough. She opened it. The pages were wafer thin, so delicate they were almost translucent. And the _script_ … Asha felt huge and ungainly even looking at it. The letters swooped and flew, looping together like wrought iron, both jagged and seamless all at the same time. Her heart beat a ferocious rhythm in her chest; she yearned to read this text, to not only learn its secrets but know them, too. It felt imperative, somehow. Reluctantly, she closed it, and set it aside, pulling the translation from the shelf. This was typed and printed, a quarter of the size of the original and with significantly less golden embossment. The small, plain volume felt almost disrespectful in her hands. Resisting the urge to sit down in the dusty aisle and start to read she tucked the book under her arm, pulled her sheets around her shoulders and began the long walk back. By the time she reached the halfway point, night had fallen fully, the bright, yellow moon shining in through the arched windows, filling half the horizon with its cratered surface. Selecting one of the many alcoves that lined the wall, she settled into it, releasing the sphere of light to float above her head, illuminating the small space. Crossing her legs, she pulled her duvet up to her chin and turned to the first page. Activating the ‘read aloud’ function on her implant, she stared at the book without really seeing it, as a soothing robotic voice read it straight into her ears. She sat like this, devouring the information as fast as she could hear it, for hours. Her light began to dim in the early hours of the morning and were eventually substituted for a strangely golden moonlight that spilled onto the page like ichor, or sheeted gold. She listened into the early hours of the morning, drinking in the history of a strange people that felt somehow familiar in a way she could not explain. And as she listened, tucked up into the corner of a bookshelf in a that cavernous library on a planet so very far from home, she learned three things:

Firstly, she learned about power.

On Chasca, power was an accident of birth. Or at least it had been, at first. In the beginning, those born with abilities were no different to those born without. They worked side by side, fought side by side, slept and ate and died side by side. Until tragedy befell the crown, and a powerless heir was born. Outwardly, this was easily remedied; a cousin took the throne and order was restored. But to those in the know it presented a conundrum; if one was to keep the crown within their own bloodline for as long as possible, then all successors had to be born empowered. It was this that eventually led to the edict passed a century later: power was to become a royal privilege—anyone who could not claim royal lineage caught using their abilities would be charged with treason. This had an odd effect on the nature of the abilities possessed by royalty.

(She remembered a hand at the nape of her neck and _they would kill us, if they knew._ She remembered a room built for war and the way the marble had cracked in the heat of the fire.)

They became distilled through generations of exclusivity and concentrated, until two dominant abilities emerged. Word-whispering, and planet-whispering. This soon changed the structure of the monarchy. _Lexiklikks_ —word-whisperers—became the generals, leaders of armies, attainers of victory. The _Terraklikks_ —planet-whisperers—were the ones to ascend the throne. It was unclear why.

Secondly, she learned about prophecy.

The Chascans were a religious people, who worshipped not gods, but heroes. More specifically, the objects those heroes had left behind. There was a sword, its blade made of gold and shot through with crystal. There was a crown, spires of delicately spiked, bright metal, encrusted with the same crystal that ran through the blade of the sword. And there was a shield inscribed with the three faces of the heroes. The faces of legend.

(Asha felt her gut clench at this. She knew those objects. Knew the weight of them in her hands and the blazing heat of the raw power they had forced through her blood. She knew the words inscribed beneath them. She reckoned she could sing them in her sleep, if she tried.)

These objects were supposed to save the galaxy. The Chascans foretold a tyrant; a being who would rise to prominence out of a power vacuum unlike any ever seen before. They had said that he would seem at first like salvation, but given time, would show his true colors.

(And he had.)

They then reiterated that the objects were the key to defeating him, but that they needed a Knight. They said that only a Knight could wield all three and come out alive. The footnotes of the text had said that Knight could likely mean general, and therefore it was reasonable to deduce it could also mean lexiklikk.

(She felt so hollow she thought she might tip and smash and blow away on the breeze.)

The third thing she learned was the difference between suspecting and knowing, and how it is awfully easy to exist in the former state, but not so easy to weather the latter in a single, heart-wrenching moment that feels as if the earth beneath one’s feet has been whisked away.

Asha closed the book and returned to her room.

Stones so cool they felt wet pressed against the sole of her foot as she stepped out onto the balcony. A quick, pricking breeze blew sharply from the direction of the setting sun, carrying with it the scent of earth and wildflowers. Asha closed her eyes and lent against the balcony’s stone rail. How easy it would be for it crumble and for her to fall. Vertigo clutched at her. She felt as though she were walking in a dream, corners softened and senses selectively heightened. Everything felt ephemeral and dangerous in its blatant ephemerality. As though the whole world was fleeting, and she was the only constant thing. Like the walls of reality were about to glitch away and collapse, exposing her as the only non-prop in a world of actors and holograms.

Something wet fell onto her hand. Opening her eyes in shock, she looked up to the sky to see if it was raining, only to find that the stars were bright red blurs, and that it wasn’t rain splashing onto her skin, but tears. Another tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away, then sat abruptly down. This was long overdue, really.

Usually, Asha prided herself on her stoicism. In her ability to weather the toughest of storms and emerge unscathed and unharmed, wearing a scowl and a frown and remaining for the best part unaffected. She would shove any wayward emotions down deep, resolving to deal with messy things like sadness, and regret and loneliness later. But this was not possible now. Within the past forty-eight hours, her idea of who she was and where she came from, of the blood that ran in her veins, of her destiny and her purpose, had been flipped on its head and destroyed. All she had now was the memory of who she used to be, facing down the looming reality of who she really was, with no more than lies and misconceptions as defence. The tears fell faster. She remembered the feeling of not being able to separate herself and her mind from that of the Chascan princess’, and she remembered what it felt like to have the hope of a nation pinned entirely on her, like a target. She remembered sickly what it felt like to feel a child move inside her, and the emptiness and pain she had felt so keenly after it had gone. She remembered the prophecy and the word _chosen_ and the way her heart had nearly cannoned out of her chest at the recognition she had felt. She remembered blood smeared with ash on white marble and the horrible way that being in love had turned her into a version of herself willing to sacrifice anything and everything for someone else. Her tears turned to ragged sobs as she quietly admitted how badly she wanted that, but how much it terrified her, and how she was sure it would never happen anyway.

She closed her eyes again, and the image of the girl with brown skin and white hair, whose tattoos had danced and whose family had died, reappeared in her mind’s eye. The girl was her mother, that much she was sure of.

_Everything you have just witnessed is true. We have granted you this knowledge as we believe it is yours to have._

She breathed out a sigh, already half-defeated.

 _Let her sleep in peace._ Aio had said. _Let her sleep until there comes a time when she may wake and be safe._

Her eyes stung with tears that wanted to fall but no longer could. She had nothing left to give.

Suddenly, unwillingly, Asha remembered being nine years old and drowning. She had snuck under the electrical fences that surrounded Oasis 2 to dip her toes in the cool, dark water and stayed far longer than she meant to. She had had no concept of time, and the ringing of the curfew bells in the silence had shocked her so much she had slipped and fallen in. The Oasis had been deserted, except for a single security guard, asleep in his watchtower. He hadn’t heard her cries, but he had felt them. Her head had broken the surface three times before she began to sink. Each time she had screamed wordless shrieks of desperation as her throat filled with water, and her lungs seized up. The final time she had screamed out she had been completely submerged. One word, obscured by the precious oxygen that billowed through the water after it, had pierced the mind of the security guard who slept in the tower looking over Oasis 1, which was directly next door. She remembered the jolt that had felt like adrenaline but wasn’t.

_Help._

She had been saved, and the security guard had been lauded as a hero.

Asha remembered being fourteen years old and holding the rejection letter from the Garaahn Aviation Academy. Anila was sitting at the kitchen table offering her condolences and hugs and other meaningless consolation, and Asha had felt so smothered by her pity and her sorrow that she had thrown the letter in the fire and whispered, “Forget it,” through the tears that had begun to choke her. Again, trembling with energy that had seemingly come from nowhere.

“What was that, Asha, honey?” her mother had asked. And her voice had been so full of caring that it chafed unbearably at Asha’s pride and so she had shouted.

_Forget it._

And her mother had. No mention of Asha’s application to the Aviation academy ever ushered from Anila’s lips. Why would it? As far as her mother was concerned, Asha had never even applied.

(Why would she? She was Human. They weren’t made for greatness.)

Asha remembered being newly seventeen years old. She was inside a lift at GAA, past curfew, with half a dozen scavenger thieves calling out for her blood on the other side of the door. She had shoved an electromagnet out of the gap in the doors and willed it to work. She had begged once, twice, three times, and then the circuits had connected on command and she was shuddering with the power that had surged through her words.

The history she had read in the library book pushed up through her subconscious.

_The last of the known powers of Chascan royalty are the word-whisperers. Known traditionally as Lexikklik, these are those with sacred power over the spoken word. Those who possess this power can make manifest anything which they say aloud. They can create objects from mere will and bend the elements to their bidding simply by calling them forth. They can change the minds of any creature through mere suggestion and transform the conceptual into the realized, though this has been known to provoke many a dire consequence. This power is the ficklest of all, and is possessed differently by each who wields it, taking lifetimes to master and years to even begin to comprehend._

She stared blearily at the striated shadows that fell on the floor of the balcony. Blankly, she gazed at the white strips of moonlight contrasting with the deep black strips of shadow, and in them she saw the symbol of the Consortium. In a hot burst of anger, she lashed out with her foot as though she could dispel the shadows and destroy the thing that had ruined her life before it had even started, the looming monster that ruined countless of lives just because it could. Just because it wanted to taste the blood of the helpless and laugh while they struggled to survive in its shadow.

She looked up, at the wide, pale surface of the moon.

_What am I? Please, someone tell me what I am._

But she knew. Had known since she’d sat on the floor of that train carriage and pulled out her portable and stared at the photo of her mother and her, side by side and smiling. She looked at the shape of their eyes, the set of their mouths and the curves of their noses. She compared it to the face she’d seen in a vision. The face that looked like hers and felt like hers but hadn’t been. Not quite.

Then she looked at her hands and felt a spark of impossibility turn into a spark of possibility and catch alight.

“Fire,” she whispered, but nothing happened.

“Fire,” she said, louder this time, and laced with conviction.

Still nothing. She hung her head, wearied beyond belief and so _confused_ her heart hurt. The anger that lived only a thought away kindled to life in her chest. This wasn’t _fair_.

_Life isn’t fair, Asha. You know this better than anyone._

But she had never been able to accept that. Had always chafed against the laws laid down by those who deemed themselves superior, and slyly, silently needled her away around them, searching, reading, learning. _Flying_.

“Fire,” she said, one last time, just to prove that she _could._ Just to prove to herself that she had not been cowed by circumstance, to prove that she never would be. 

And there it was.

A little inferno, dancing in the palm of her hand like a candle flame.

Asha’s logical brain, the brain that understood complex mathematics and trajectory paths and metaphysics and just about accepted accidents of birth that might mean a person who previously thought themselves Human, was in fact not, could not compute this shining, flickering impossibility. The brain that could navigate the theories and equations of hyperspace with relative ease but rejected anything that could not be explained by science was overcome.

She took one last look at that fiery promise of something completely insane and felt all the blood rush from her head.

She lay there for an hour or so, cheek pressed against the cold tiles, breath ghosting into the night, before she was found.

The hands that picked her up from the floor were deft and strong and green as early summer grass.

She did not wake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End of Part II


	3. part three (dr strange voice: we're in the endgame now :^)

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Three

[planet: Aonia]  + [The Palace of Mirrors ]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

Obi…

…Obi

_Obi._

A voice jolted him awake. Obi sat up, blinking blearily in the dim light.

“Hello?” he asked.  Who is it?”

Silence, no reply. He lay back down, thoroughly unsettled. Just as he was drifting off again, he heard it. A voice, calling his name, echoing around the inside of his skull. It rose the hairs on the back of his neck, but it didn’t feel wrong, didn’t feel invasive or out of place. It felt… ordained somehow. As though the voice had merely been sleeping for eighteen years inside his head and had chosen this moment to make itself known. It felt like the voice of something higher, almost. When he rose from the bed it was not of his own volition, but he didn’t struggle. The hallways were deserted, light spilling through the windows like blood, warm wind blowing through the open windows and gusting leaves through the colonnade of the inner courtyard. Obi briefly considered going to Asha’s room and making her come with him, but the thought was swept aside by another’s hand, and the voice whispered again, lyrical and rough and commanding.

_Not her, you. You, with ancient, piecemeal soul._

He came to a brief pause at the bottom of a staircase that lead upwards into a tower, the steps receding into the dim, murky light. In a sort of uncomfortable, forced epiphany, Obi realized that when he reached the top he would face another pivotal moment on his journey through life. With every single step he took up the winding, narrowing staircase that led into the darkness, he felt versions of his future splintering and splitting into smaller paths, all reflective of the different choices he might make at the top of this tower.

The door appeared seemingly out of nowhere. A faint, golden glow shimmered out of the crack between door and wall, undulating in brightness. Obi dropped to his knees when he felt the sheer amount of energy radiating through the wood. His kneecaps thudded against the stone but he barely felt it. His brain was buzzing inside his cranium, his fingertips felt electric, _he_ felt electric. He gasped. Then, the door swung open to reveal a figure suspended in mid-air, wreathed in ropes of golden energy. Obi stood. Through the spaces in the flowing light he caught glimpses of a being clearly not of this world. To all intents and purposes, she appeared human-like. Her skin, however, was black as pitch and lit from within by veins that ran with golden light. She was not clothed. The golden light that surrounded her body should have softened her features, rounding her edges and diffusing any of the harshness in her face, but instead it sharpened her. He saw the savage curve of her eyelashes, and the knife sharp jut of her chin—defiant and angry and powerful. Her nails tapered to wicked points, too, and once he noticed this it was like stepping back from admiring the individual brush strokes of a painting to see the whole thing. A curved knee, the arch of a foot, strokes of black and rivulets of pulsing gold all came together to make not a girl, nor a weapon—though this felt closer to the truth—but something far _purer_. He didn’t quite know what. Her nakedness did not make her seem vulnerable, or awkward, but godly and fundamentally _correct_ in a way Obi had never seen before and did not believe he would see again. Had she been clothed she would have appeared smaller, less full, less powerful. This was raw power. _She_ was raw power. Obi felt almost as though he were about to cry.

_Obi Amadi._

The voice—her voice—rang out inside his head.

_Arἳcoaryuἠ, you are correct; I am not of this world. In my world I was what you might call God._

There was a pause, as though she were giving him time to comprehend the full implications of that statement.

  _There were two of us. The God of Good things, and the God of Wicked ones. I was of Good, and my brother was of Wicked. Neither of us chose these roles, and as a result we grew to resent them. My brother wanted worship, wanted love—craved it like the sunlight he was deprived of—but did not receive it as the dead cannot love, and the deadland was his dominion. I do not care for such things as that, but I received them as I granted only goodness and rewarded only the virtuous and those who deserved it. My brother has come to this world seeking all the things he was denied in the one we herald from. I tried to stop him, but I failed. My last command before I lost much of my power was that I be placed in a position to help my brother. Or destroy him, if need be. My power is greatly diminished here, as I was chosen by none, and my power is fueled in part by belief. You, Obi Amadi, are to be the conduit that links past to present, brother to sister, soul to future, chosen to chooser, father to son._

The back of Obi’s neck prickled. _Father to son._

_You will guide me to my brother as is foretold. You will help me quell his anger and his desperation, or you will help me defeat him. If we succeed you will lose many things, but I will do all that is within my power to ensure you do not lose everything. That is my word and my promise._

Her words were winged and flew at him like knives imbued with meaning. In them, he felt her fall from the heavens; the way she had crashed like a comet into the abandoned east wing of the Palace of Mirrors and then disappeared, reappearing in a disused tower where she could regain her strength until Obi arrived.

 _Yes,_ she said, her voice echoing inside his mind like the toll of a bell. _Yes, I have waited._

The gold ropes of power that hung around her began to disintegrate into luminescent golden powder that swirled around the room, forming huge, kinetic shapes— _a horse rearing on its hind legs, a clock face striking the hour, a crown falling to the floor, two hands that Obi had glimpsed in a dream once, straining towards each other, turning gold_ —which then crumbled back into the currents of shining dust that eddied furiously around the figure at the center of it all. Then the dust halted, hanging like so many stars in a vast universe of which the lost god was the center. Obi stood, transfixed, hyperaware of everything; the collar of his nightshirt brushing against his neck, the rhythm of his breathing, of _her_ breathing. The breathing of the castle and the planet and the breaths of his dreams. He closed his eyes.

George’s face stared back at him from the blackness, reconstructed in the god’s golden dust. He was looking past Obi, so Obi turned around, and came face to face with his father. The shock was nearly enough to floor him, and he staggered on the flagstones.

“Dad?”

But his father couldn’t hear him.

Then the darkness swallowed George and Alarick, and replaced them with a boy Obi didn’t recognize, but somehow knew to be the girl’s brother. Obi watched as he stepped out of a blazing rip in the air and ran towards a palace. Buckingham House. The boy disintegrated and reformed behind Obi, with a box in his hand— _the_ box, the one with Obi’s soul inside—and a ring on his finger. Then he looked upward at the god’s face, but the body attached to the hand with the ring on it belonged to George, and he was staring at the ring with two faces. One of his faces was blank, so blank he could have been carved out of marble if not for the tears running down his cheeks. The other face was anger personified. A screaming mouth and bloodshot eyes, brow furrowed and clenched, a valley of fury in the crease between his eyebrows.

Obi turned away and the god rose up out of the ground, forming slowly out of the golden dust until they were eyes to eye. The god blinked, and Obi was sucked into his pupil. The god’s plan stretched out in front of him, as clear and obvious as though it had been written in his own hand.

 _He is only toying with them,_ said the goddess _. Leading them on a chase throughout the city while biding his time. They think they have him cornered, but he is more slippery than even I anticipated. He will wait until the midwinter solstice, and then he will turn the people of the city into his subjugates. He will force worship upon them until they have torn down the old monuments and built temples to him in their place. Once he has that city under his control, he will move onto the next until all the continents love him. Who is to say what he will do next?_

Obi pictured a future where a crazed man forced a religion onto trillions of people—of sentients—who never asked for it. Never wanted it. While taking away their freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of faith—turning them into mindless slaves instead.

He sighed.

Obi thought of Asha’s face when she described the monotony of her life. When she described the pain and degradation she suffered as a result of having her basic sentient rights stripped away due to a lack of citizenship. He imagined being asked to worship the man who had done that. Tried to imagine what it might be like to be forced.

“He has to be stopped.”

_Yes, he does._

Obi was struck again by the vision of the two hands he had seen reaching towards each other through blue fire, one black as obsidian, the other white as marble, gold rippling over skin from where their fingers touched. The certainty that the black hand belonged to the god in the middle of the room, and to his father _and_ to himself was arresting. The certainty that the white one represented both George and the God of Wicked things was terrifying beyond belief.

_Your father and your lover and the city which means the most to you will burn if you do not help me find my brother and save him._

Obi finally found his voice.

“And if I refuse?”

_You could not say no even if you wanted to._

Obi bowed his head and felt his future narrow like the trunk of a tree whose decaying and useless branches have crumbled away to leave only the strongest, most viable ones to thrive. This feeling meant that he had made his choice. This feeling meant that this moment had been _crucial_ and that he had diverged from the path he had been on before, the one where he might have ignored the summons of the god in the tower, or perhaps had refused to help, or even hurled himself from the window when offered the responsibility and culpability for the saving or damning of an entire city. This principle—this _principle of moments_ —meant that he could not renege on his decision. It had become part of history, now.

_I am forever in your debt, Obi Amadi. I thank you._

Then the golden light dimmed, shrouding the god until she was clothed in a simple kaftan and cloth leggings. She was lowered gently to the floor. The light extinguished completely, and for the first time, Obi could see her face in full.

A single golden line ran down each of her cheeks, glimmering brightly against her skin like jewelry. Her hair was intricately braided, hanging in thick ropes around her face and shoulders, threaded through with golden strands, small beads and tiny hoops that glittered in the candlelight. She did look smaller now. Less god, more girl. Wind blew softly through the window, ruffling the folds of her clothing. The curtains whispered against each other, letting in slivers of light, and Obi felt suddenly very small.

Opening her eyes, the girl sat up. Her irises were gold.

“My name is Lei,” she said.

“Obi Amadi,” he replied. “But you already knew that. God, I feel like I should bow or something.”

She raised an eyebrow. “There is no need for that. What there is need for, however, is a plan. By my understanding, you are awaiting summons from your acquaintance who will give you a cure to the disease that sickens you. You do not need to accompany your friend to the Consortium stronghold, but you will because you want to help her succeed and you do not want to disappoint her. You then plan to take the cure and travel back to London in 1812, as this is where your lover lives. Due to the huge amounts of energy your Anchoring required when it used a person instead of a place to house the fragment of your soul, there is—”

“Excuse me?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I Anchored my soul to London. The fragment of my soul that I left there is tied to the _city_. A _place_. Not a person. What are you talking about?”

Lei looked at him blankly.

“Your soul is tied to George Augustus Frederick of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, King of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg—”

“Please, stop.” Obi’s heart felt ready to stutter out of his chest and fall, beating and bloody, onto the floor. “I don’t understand. That—that isn’t possible.” He said firmly. “The Book clearly states a Guide must Anchor their soul to a _time and place_. Well, I anchored mine to London in 1810. That’s where it will always be, because that’s how this _works_.”

“I’m afraid not,” Lei said, unsmiling. “There are things that I know to be completely, infallibly, true, and this is one of them. George IV is your Anchoring Place. This may be uncommon, but it is not unheard of for people like you.” Her voice became softer. “Your father was the same. He anchored himself to someone, but she died. Sometimes a memory is enough for the soul to cleave to, but he is the only one who remembers her, so…” she trailed off. “Are you alright?”

Obi was still. His mother. Alarick had never talked about her, and if he had Obi had long forgotten. He had been so _young_. And now history was repeating itself. If he was to believe her when she claimed that he had Anchored himself to George—and how could he not? She was a god, wasn’t she?—then it meant he was following unwittingly in his father’s footsteps. He was reminded of the vision of his father he had seen in the golden dust, the way Alarick had looked through him whilst seemed entirely aware of George’s presence—almost as though they had been inhabiting the same space.

 _Where?_ He’d asked Qala.

 _London,_ she’d replied. _March, 1812._

Obi wasn’t sure what he would do if he returned to London to find his father waiting. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

He swallowed forcefully, “Yes, I’m fine.” _Lie_. “Let’s get back to that plan you mentioned. I believe you were in the middle of telling me my future. Please don’t let me stop you, I love hearing about all the stupid decisions I am yet to make.”

“Well,” she said, “My brother only knows a life lived as the king of what you would call an underworld. He cannot truly comprehend a life lived any other way, as he did not watch the birth of civilizations, as I did. Did not bask in the glow of their golden ages.” A wistful look passed across her face. “He has not seen joy, or passion, or watched a man walk a hundred thousand miles to be with the one he loves. The only kind of devotion he knows is the kind that murders and rapes and mutilates its subject. As I’m sure you are beginning to gather, my brother was uninterested in the preservation of pure souls. He believes that every soul has a seed of darkness inside it that only needs the right hand, the right conditions, to flourish. If you came to him uncorrupted, you did not remain that way for long. This is how it will be in your city. First the weak will fall. Those who already live in the darkness. The thieves and killers and abusers. Then, the morally grey, those who are neither good nor bad. Finally, he will hollow out the minds of the good people that are left in London, rendering them totally subservient before he releases horror into their minds. Horror, regret, guilt, terrible sadness; these are the only things he knows, and he was taught them by the dead. He will make the people of the city into living corpses and then he will force them to worship him.”

Shocked into silence, Obi said nothing.

“He will need an immense source of pure power to facilitate this plan,” Lei continued. “Currently, the largest, most volatile power source in the city is the part of your soul that you left behind with the Prince Regent. I believe my brother’s plan is to sacrifice him in order to release the energy he requires.”

The bottom of Obi’s world fell away. Hollowness spread from his chest to his heart, from his lungs to his head. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

_Sacrifice him._

“No,” Obi said. “I— _No_.”

Lei nodded. “You can stop it. _We_ can stop it if we work together.”

Obi was still. Both his hearts felt still, suspended in motion, frozen between one beat and the next. He… he felt dull and faded and barely there.

“Tell me what I have to do.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Four

[planet: Aonia]  + [The Palace of Mirrors ]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

In the end, it was Red who granted them passage onto the ship bound for A’lkari. He had developed a certain fondness for Asha, likely seeing her in a far more favorable light after aiding and abetting her light night library trips. Xavior hypothesized that the Initiate lifestyle had begun to repress him, and so he was using them to relieve his need for troublemaking.

(“You say that like he’ll die if he doesn’t have some kind of outlet. Troublemaking isn’t a necessary process of life.” “…You and I both know that’s a dirty, dirty lie.”)

Either way, all Asha had had to do was ask.

Technically, she hadn’t told him that they would also be exiting the ship at the other end. He thought they simply wanted to see the planet from afar and had no interest in actually setting foot on it. She felt bad for lying to him, but if everything went according to plan, he would never know they had disembarked. They would smuggle Aziza back onto Aonia and then get the hell off the planet and back to the rest of their lives.

If they failed… well. They would be too dead to experience any kind of consequence and Red was protected by the cloak on his back and the hive mind of the Initiated. To harm one was to harm them all, and Emperor Thracin did not want the might of Aonia turned against him.

Now, they were each carrying a small bag packed with essentials, wearing the white cloaks of the Uninitiated, and walking through the hall of mirrors on their way to board the very ship in question.

Xavior was trailing forlornly behind Asha, whispering unsubtly to Obi about how she had been avoiding him and how it was driving him crazy that he didn’t know why.

“I mean, I thought we were getting on, you know? Like I thought we were making progress, and stuff, but I guess not.”

“Er,” Obi replied.

“And it’s not like I’m a horrible person! I’m nice! Friendly, even! Which is more than can be said for some. It’s not my fault she’s so serious.”

Asha turned around.

“I think you’d be rather serious if you were the only thing standing in between your sister and permanent enslavement.”

Silence.

Asha inwardly cringed at herself and how horrible she was being. He hadn’t done anything wrong… not at all. He’d what? Been himself? Been kind and honest and forthright?

_You can’t hate someone just because they spent more time with your father than you did due to a bizarre twist of fate that they had no hand in._

_You can’t hate someone for being nice to you. For making you feel things you have no right to geel._

And there was the crux of the matter. She was furious, but without any right to be and she didn’t know how to handle it.

She sped up, distancing herself from the two boys and walking out into the sunlight, where one of the largest space vessels she had ever seen was stationed.

The ship was a sleek, streamlined craft built for speeding through space-gates at incredible speeds. Ships of average quality travelled through the tunnel-like paths behind the gates like carts along a dusty, rocky path, turbulently buffeted by the extra-dimensional winds. Ships of military grade quality sped through determinedly and reliably, with a negligible accident count. The ship Asha was looking at right now—jaw hanging open, eyes wide and disbelieving—was _imperial_ quality. This ship would punch through the space-gate and blast through the tunnel, efficiently shortening a journey of two to four weeks into one of fifteen hours. Asha’s throat went dry as she thought of trying to reach Aziza without the Aonian’s help. How had she thought she could do this on her own?

Vaguely she felt Obi and Xavior move past her and up into the ship.

_Because you think you can do everything unaided until failure is so close you can see the whites of its eyes and the paper-thin armor that seemed so solid moments before._

Asha scowled, and stormed up the gangway after them, where Obi hovered near the entrance, sipping on a juice pouch.

“Hey,” he said.

Asha nodded back, picking at a spot on her face.

“Nice to see you too?”

She looked at him as if it say, _is it?_ and continued scratching at the spot until blood welled up under her fingernail.

“That is disgusting,” Obi said. “Stop, or you’ll get a scar.”

“Then we’d be matching.”

“A cool-looking scar acquired in a highly roguish and debonair sword fight is _very_ different to a poxy looking acne scar.”

She sniggered and shoved him. Unfortunately, one of the crew members chose that exact moment to pass them, arms loaded with boxes that were precariously balanced even before Obi crashed into them.

Asha watched aghast as they toppled to the ground, all the boxes except for one spilling food sachets and hydration packets all over the floor. The crew member glared, cursing them in several different languages while Obi jumped to his feet, apologizing at a mile a minute, and gathering up the spilled goods. He looked for Asha over his shoulder and glared at her with such unbridled fury that she began to laugh. She had never seen him so embarrassed, and over such a tiny thing, too! She doubled over, tears streaming down her face as she laughed harder than she had in days.

“Are you just going to stand there and laugh at me?” Obi grumbled. “This isn’t even my fault!”

“Sorry, s—sorry,” she gasped. “I—hold on, I genuinely can’t move, _oh_ , your _face_!” and then she was laughing again, harder than before. Her ribs hurt, her cheeks ached, and now Obi was snorting too, his hands barely able to hold the packets he was trying to replace.

The crew member was staring at them in disbelief.

“You two, leave,” they said. “Just go. I can clean this up faster without you here to get in the way.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

They walked quickly into the interior of the ship, coming to a stop in the middle of the hold. Xavior was already there. He must have walked past them during their incident with the food sachets. Asha wondered for a brief moment if she looked nice when she laughed but remembered with a sinking feeling that she hadn’t been laughing so much as scream-roaring, and so was probably more likely to attract medical help than any appreciation from Xavior. Not that she cared.

“Hey, you,” she said, walking over to stand opposite him. “We need to go over our plan for when we land on A’lkari. Then we need to run it by Obi and make sure he’s up to date with all the parts that include him.”

“Sure.” Xavior replied. Then, “Guessing you’re still mad at me, or avoiding me or whatever.” He looked at her searchingly. “Come on, Asha. Help me out here. If I said something, did something… just tell me so I can apologize and we can move on.”

Shame settled in her stomach. He didn’t deserve this. What was she supposed to say?

_Sorry I ignored you for days and bailed on our sparring sessions. Sorry I can’t look you in the eye. Sorry I’ve convinced myself that you harbor sinister yet vague ulterior motives. Sorry I can’t handle anyone being nice to me. Sorry I’m running away just when you need me. Sorry I’m so angry all the time._

“I—” she faltered. “Don’t worry about it.”

Then she turned and walked away, ignoring the way his gaze burned into her back, accusatory and confused, just as he had every right to be.

 

 ***

 

Three hours later, Asha was sitting opposite Obi in his cabin, both of them eating a strange looking snack that tasted like rehydrated fruit and fizzed violently on contact with saliva.

“These are weirdly addictive,” Asha said, pulling a lump of said snack off, and sticking it in her mouth. She crossed her eyes and bared her teeth, tongue lolling and foam spilling through the gaps to run down her chin. “Look,” she said. “I’m you that time we saw that handsome Kasketh on Nautikos.”

Obi rolled his eyes. “Very original. Give me some.”

She threw the lump towards him and he caught it. Pulling some off, he placed it on the end of his tongue to watch it fizz.

“Obi, do you think I’m a terrible person?”

He nearly choked, hurriedly swallowing, and trying not to wince as the snack burned on the way down.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “Of course not. Where has this come from?”

She flopped back on the bed. “I keep thinking about my sister. I’m about to rip her away from everything she’s ever known… to what? Take her home with me, where she’ll be forced to work anyway? I have all these grand and noble ideas about returning for my mother and then whisking us all away to some place we can live in happiness… but I don’t even know if I’ll make it to A’lkari alive, let alone get to the heroic rescuing part. I just,” she paused, collecting herself. “I don’t know how to be… I don’t know what I’ve become.” Her voice was quiet. “I think—” she broke off. Obi could tell she was close to tears. “I just feel very uncertain about everything I’ve set out to do. Maybe I should have just stayed on Gahraan. Maybe ignorance _was_ bliss, and I should have worked there and died there like everyone else. I feel incredibly stupid.”

 _Oh,_ he thought. _So, she is infallible. Just like everyone else. She is simply incredibly adept at hiding it._ He realised that he had almost forgotten she was human, just like him.

“No, Asha.” He said. “You did the right thing. Undeniably, you did the right thing. As for what you’ve become…? I can’t tell you. I didn’t know you before. But I _do_ know you now, and so,” he smiled, “I know that you’re brave. I know that you’re a little selfish, but not without reason. I know you run your life by a strict, private code that I am only just beginning to decipher, but that feels incredibly just. I know that I admire you.” He scrunched his nose up. “Now I’ve said ‘know’ so many times it sounds weird.” He smiled at her. “If you stop to think about all this for too long you’ll run yourself into rings that can only drag you down. I believe in you. You should, too.”

She nodded, her face washed out in the grey light.

“Thank you.”

“No problem, kid.”

“Not a kid.”

Obi felt a piece of fruit snack bounce off his head.

“I take it back, you are terrible.”

Asha flopped back on her bed, and though he could not see her face, he knew she was grinning.

He would miss her, when the time came to leave. He would really, truly miss her.

Asha sat up, looking shocked, and Obi realised he had said all that out loud.

“I’ll miss you too,” she said. “I’ve never had a… a _friend_ before. I didn’t think I ever would. Thanks for… tolerating me, I guess.”

Obi rolled his eyes, but he was beaming. “Well if your mother wasn’t paying me…”

“Oh, shut up.”

They both smiled shyly into the space between the beds.

There was a knock at the door. They both jumped, then laughed at themselves, and the tension was gone. Not that it had been a bad kind of tension, Obi thought. It had just felt the way things usually feel when the finality and the fleeting ephemerality of a good, _good_ thing is voiced aloud. The fact that their partnership had an expiration date loomed in front of both of them and refused to be ignored any longer. Obi sighed. He never had been any good at goodbyes.

A mop of wild black curls peeked around the door frame, two horns silhouetted against the light from the corridor.  

“Can I come in?”

Obi looked at Asha. He knew she was mad at Xavior for something, he just didn’t know what—but she nodded.

“Yeah,” Obi called out. “Sure.”

Xavior closed the door softly behind him and then made himself comfortable on the floor. He laid a plate of rehydrated fruit snacks— of the non-fizzing variety—on the floor.

“A peace offering,” he explained. “for hijacking your adventure with my stupid training.”

Asha raised an eyebrow.                                                                                         

“Look, I don’t know what I said earlier, but something I did clearly upset you. Maybe you finally realised that I was letting you win that one time we trained together and the shame has been eating you alive.” Asha audibly snorted at that. “Maybe you’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I am the superior NightWing player with a way hotter avi, and are having trouble processing such an emotional blow.”  He closed his eyes, and spread his arms, his face screwed up as though in anticipation of a blunt trauma.

“Go on,” he said. “You can hit me if it will make you feel better.”

Obi saw the quirk of Asha’s mouth before she forced it into a straight line and repressed the urge to smile himself. _Frosty exterior with a heart of gold,_ he thought. _She’ll be alright without me._

“I’m not going to hit you,” Asha said.

“Oh, thank god—”

“It would be completely unsatisfying. Like hitting a child.”

“Right. Of course.”

“Though, I do appreciate the gesture. Thank you very much.”

Obi blinked several times, marveling at her gracious response, at the new-found composure and the _eloquence_ —

“Fuck you, though,” she continued. “I’ll show you who’s the better NightWing player just as soon as I get my hands on a console you cocky, _irritating,_ piece of trash.”

“Hah! You wish.”

“No, _you_ wish, I’ll smash my plane so hard into your—”

“ _Guys_.”

Obi shook his head, repressing the urge to smile ruefully, trying desperately to look stern. The day these two held a civil conversation would be a miracle all on its own.

Asha rolled her eyes.

“Well it’s obvious you didn’t just come here to apologize.” She pointed at the tablet clutched under his arm. “The plan.”

“Ah! Yes, the plan. A combination of my genius skill as a strategian, and your…” he pretended to contemplate the rest of his sentence. “Oh yeah, your _nothing_ because I _slaved_ away for hours on my own to produce this beauty of a—”

“Take that back.”

Obi glanced at Asha. _Ah_ , he thought. Perhaps not the wisest word choice on Xavior’s part.  

Asha was staring daggers at Xavior’s confused face, her fists clenched with the effort it was clearly taking her not to strangle him.

“Oh,” he said, eyes widening and face paling. “Oh, I am so, so sorry. Shit. I—”

“Just. Take it back.”

“I take it back! That is not what I meant at all. I am so sorry.”

Asha nodded. Obi knew she wasn’t too angry—the word had triggered her temper and the memories of where she had come from and she had lashed out.

“It’s fine,” she said quietly. “I get it—you weren’t… you didn’t mean it like that.”

“I _swear_ I didn’t.” His face was alive with sincerity. “I would never hurt you like that.”

Asha turned away, picking at her bedspread. “Okay.”

Obi eyed her, slightly taken aback. Was she… _blushing_? Surely not.

 Xavior powered on the tablet, pinching the screen and drawing it upwards until a complex yet patchy looking hologram hovered between them. “I constructed this from memory, hence the gaps, but it’s fairly comprehensive. I’ve also included the patrol timings and routes, but again these might have changed.” He took a deep breath. “It’s going to be so strange to go back there.”

Asha leant forward, chin steepled on her fingers, scrutinizing the hologram intensely.  

“How old is this information?”

Xavior cleared his throat, “Seven years.”

Obi winced. Asha looked just as uncomfortable if not more.

“I know it’s not ideal,” Xavior said, “But it’s the best we have. And if there’s one thing I know about the way the Consortium runs, it’s that routine is _paramount_. They will not have changed the ways things are run when they’ve worked perfectly for nearly half a century.”

Obi nodded. He didn’t like it but…

“Well.” Asha said gruffly, “It’s not like we have a choice. What’s this plan you’ve got for us then?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Five

[planet: none]  + [free space]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

It was their tenth hour on board the ship bound for A’lkari, and Asha was going out of her mind. Her footsteps echoed loudly on the metal of the deserted walkway she had stumbled upon half an hour ago and was now using as an outlet for her frustration. She barely resisted the urge to kick at the railing, just to see the metal crumple and dent. She felt like a live wire, exposed, and the worst part of it all was that she couldn’t get Xavior’s week-old words out of her head.

_I trust you to have my back, so just know that I’ve got yours. Whatever happens. You can count on me._

She was used to people not believing in her, used to people doubting and mocking and throwing scorn all over her dreams, but this… she didn’t know how to handle _this_.

And then there had been his apology from earlier. _I would never hurt you like that._

Even now, she felt herself recoil from the words. Embarrassment, shame, incredulity… those were the things she had felt. The things she had been conditioned to feel.

( _What are you?_ Nothing. I’m nothing. _That’s right_.)

Where was the gratitude? The _trust_? Why didn’t she feel what she was supposed to feel? Why couldn’t she stop thinking about the way he’d said _never_ like there was a future to their partnership beyond this mission? She didn’t deserve good things. Didn’t deserve kindness and sympathy from a stranger.

 _He doesn’t feel like a stranger_ , she thought. _He feels like trouble and a curse and the kind of risk I have never been able resist._

She growled, slamming her fist onto the railing. Dull pain spread up her wrist, throbbing like a warning.  

And then there was Obi and whatever it was that he was keeping from her. She saw the tiredness in his eyes, saw the anxiety and the worry that could have been put down to the stress of the mission, but she somehow knew wasn’t. He seemed constantly preoccupied and so caught up in his own head that he was beginning to get distant. Panic squeezed at her lungs. He was the only true friend she had in all this, she couldn’t lose him too.

Eyes stinging, she sat down on the floor of the walkway. Frustration and fear were threatening to spill over—if she didn’t get a grip on her emotions now she would be useless when the time finally came to infiltrate Thracin’s command center.

That was another thing imminently threatening to overwhelm her. The moment had finally come. The moment where she would save her sister or die trying. She knew now that returning home empty handed had never been an option. She was starting to realise that returning home at all was barely an option either, anymore. Hot tears spilled over her cheeks. God, she needed to pull it together. This was bordering on ridiculous, but she just felt so… so lonely. She felt small and insignificant and it was horrible. She felt everything that she was not pressing in on either side, taunting her. _You_ , she thought sickly, _a pathetic little girl against the might of an empire. What were you thinking?_

But she knew what she had been thinking.

She remembered how it felt to wrap her hands around twin joysticks and _push_. Remembered how it felt to have an engine humming beneath her and a miracle of engineering responding, quick and agile to every feather-light touch. She remembered the vastness of space, and how it felt to move through it, unstoppable by the very laws of physics. Remembered the way it felt to have hard work _pay off._ Remembered every night she had spent studying from stolen books and poring over homemade hacks, searching for the flaws that might get her killed and not finding them, every twist of a lock she had picked and every dream she had dreamt that someone had dared to tell her she shouldn’t.

 _Freedom_. That’s what she’d been thinking. Freedom for herself and her sister and the thing that lived inside her heart that wanted so much more than the life she been given by a man that saw her as nothing and no one; a debt to be exploited, a resource to be used up and thrown away.

She looked down at her hands, cracked and calloused from her days in the factory, and imagined the golden hilt of a sword in one and the heavy strap of a shield in the other. Imagined how a crown might feel on her head.

 _A pathetic little girl against the might of an empire,_ echoed her thoughts.

But she rejected that.

Rejected that outright because _pathetic_ _little girl_ was about as synonymous with Asha Dhaka as a word like _weak._

The anger that lived in her reared its head. She did nothing to quell it. Instead, she resolved to forge armor out of it, armor that she would place, piece by piece, over her heart until it was as good as impenetrable. Compassion would not see her through this. Kindness could not pull a trigger. Gentle hands and benevolent smiles would not save her sister, nor would they guarantee her anything but exploitation, and she had had enough of _that_ to last a lifetime.

 _This path is the path I have chosen_ , she thought, standing to look out at the corridor that stretched out before her. _And I will see it through to the end._

 

***

 

They reconvened just over an hour later, Asha’s eyes dry and her heart reassured. The time to think was over; the time to _act_ was upon them. She felt her temper pushing at her and did nothing to quell it. Anger was what she needed right now. Anger would fuel her through this, though it was not an unlimited resource. She would burn through it in the end. Then it would burn through her.

“Asha? Are you even listening?” Obi nudged her. “Come one, focus.”

Xavior eyed her, clearly worried.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “What were you saying?”

“I was just saying that I just think it would be best to keep enemy casualties to zero,” Obi said. “We do _not_ want to draw any attention to ourselves whatsoever, there’s no point. We want to get in, get out, and stay alive. I’m looking at you, Asha. No shooting. No, not even if they shoot first.”

“That’s ridiculous! If I’m about to die obviously I’ll defend myself.”

“Well, yeah if it’s life or death—”

“What if it’s not life or death but just the quickest way to achieve our goal. Get in, get out, right?”

“No.” Obi said firmly. “You run, or you hide. You do not give away your position with laser-fire. You could compromise the whole mission. It would reckless, dangerous—"

The strain of the last few days had frayed her temper quickly, and she felt irritation surge through her.

“God, Obi,” she snapped. “Why are you so obsessed with the running and the hiding? You might have left your chance at a happy ending back in London, but I’m sure as hell not giving this up. She’s my sister and I will bring her home, whatever the cost.”

She regretted it as soon as she’d said it, but the damage was done. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

Obi’s eyes widened, then, impossibly, _he_ was shouting at _her._ Anger had never belonged to him like it had to Asha—it didn’t fit him at all. But when he spoke that ceased to matter.

 “Why am I so obsessed with ‘the running and the hiding’?” he asked mockingly, mouth twisted and ugly, hands making violent quotation marks in the air. “You think this is an obsession? It’s coded into my DNA, Asha. Not jumping is killing me just as surely as jumping does, only slower. Every time I suppress the urge to jump, I feel my true self slipping further and further away,” A grimace distorted his face, his eyebrows pulling together as though threaded through with string and _tugged_. “I could have left you so many times. I carry Artifacts with me always. When we were arrested? I could have vanished. You would have looked next to you in that cell and found only a bitter memory. I could even have left before we were ever taken on board—let you suffer the ring on your own. I could have left and it would have been _effortless_. I would have felt alive.” His voice was quieting, still angry, but not as volatile. “It’s not like you knew me well enough back then to be disappointed. You _would_ have forgotten me.” He closed his eyes. “And don’t say ‘whatever the cost’ like the cost might not be your _life_ , Asha. I know you think have nothing to lose, but I can’t claim the same thing. You’re being reckless, and it’s going to get you killed.”

“Obi—”

“ _No_. I can’t keep this up for much longer. I can’t keep watching you run into stupidly dangerous situations because you have such… such disregard for your own life. I can’t. Can’t keep this up, knowing you might die, and not being able to say anything to stop you because you would hate me for it.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“I’m not done. I also can’t stay here for much longer. My body is a biological bomb, I—” he threw his hands up in frustration. “Guides, we’re not meant to stay static. It’s a blessing and a curse, but unless we’re in our Anchoring Place we feel the need to jump like a knife against our throats that promises ecstasy instead of death if only we leant forward onto the blade.” His whole demeanor seemed to shrink in on itself. He wasn’t angry anymore; he had shrugged off that emotion like an ill-fitting coat and swapped it out for sadness. _It suited him_ , Asha thought. And then, belatedly, _how terrible_. “And you’re wrong,” he said. “I didn’t miss my shot at a happy ending. This cure that I’ve been trying to find for so long is the key.” Sighing, Obi dragged a hand over his face, and looked up, meeting Asha’s eyes. His gaze was detached, and so, so _lonely_ that it made Asha’s chest ache. Even though she was frustrated with him and exasperated beyond words, she recognised that there was something deeper to his pain than she could ever understand.

“The key to what?” she asked. “To George? I know, you told me—"

“No,” he said. “The key to everything. To nothing. To the only thing I’ve ever wanted,” he smiled, melancholic. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“Obi—”

“I don’t need to go to A’lkari to get it.”

Asha inhaled sharply, “ _What_?”

“I’ve only known since Nautikos. When we made our pact I genuinely thought the magekind’s cure-all was the only solution. But I was offered a different one by someone who knew my father and… wants to help me out.”

“So why…?”

“Why am I still here?” He shrugged. “Why do you think? It’s _you_ , Asha. I want you to succeed, I want to _help_ you succeed, dammit. You deserve this. And let’s face it,” he smiled. “You need all the help you can get. Asha I’m—”

“ _I’m sorry,_ ” she blurted out. “I am so sorry for what I said.”

He smiled lopsidedly. “You have got to stop finishing my sentences,” he said. “It’s getting irritating.”

“Shut up, I mean it.”

“Thank you.”

She pulled him into a hug. Obi was frozen for a second, before wrapping his arms around her and squeezing.

“I don’t have a death wish,” she said into his shoulder. “I just…” she hugged him tighter, “I don’t know. Sometimes I wish… I don’t _know_.”

He stroked her hair.

“I’m here for you,” he whispered. “You can talk to me.”

She nodded, and he felt tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt. Neither of them spoke.

“I—” she started but shook her head and buried her face further into his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Obi said. “Yeah I know.”

 

Xavior watched the whole thing from the corner of the room and felt a strange stirring in his chest. _Ah_ , he thought. _So that’s what I’m feeling_. _I hadn’t thought I could, anymore._

 

***

 

Obi was losing at a needlessly intricate game of cards when they passed the first outpost. The exit to the stargate was a few hours behind them, their ship had exited with little more than a tremor and Asha had pressed her face to the darkened glass to watch space rush towards them out of the distorted tunnel with wide eyes and a wider smile. Red pointed it out to them, gesticulating subtly out of the window.

“Look,” he said. “They disguise the outposts as debris to surprise any unauthorized craft.”

Asha glanced over her shoulder out of the window, Obi and Xavior looked past her, eyes narrowed.

A huge, hulking piece of rock floated just ahead, surrounded by smaller pieces of jagged debris. The ship slowed as it approached, and Asha heard the faint noise of jets being deployed from the hangar. They watched as two small craft appeared from behind the rear of the ship and quickly covered the small distance from the larger craft to the seemingly uninhabited rock. As the jets grew closer, a hatch opened in the rock, allowing them to board the outpost. A few moments later, Asha heard the sound of a message being received in the ship’s bridge and the short, polite reply from their captain and then…

A’lkari flickered to life in front of her eyes, appearing from the darkness as if it had always been there, just invisible.

“A cloaking system big enough to accommodate a whole _planet_?” Asha whispered. “There’s no way… unless they somehow figured out their way around the axionic shifter problem cited in Sinh’s report of 6068, or—or worked out a way to substitute the ventral nanosphere plating with something lighter, and about a billion times cheaper, I mean come _on_! Not to mention that the _energy_ level they must need to power it has to be… has to be—”

“Astronomical!” Xavior cut in, “And the regulations, the _maintenance_ of it… I’d bet my life savings they’ve got banks upon _banks_ of quantum computers in there, casually whirring away, burning trillions of digits of plasma every second. It’s—I— _how_ has no one heard about this?”

Obi looked back and forward between Asha and Xavior.

“Nerds,” he said. “You two deserve each other.”

That shut both of them up for a while, and the daunting nature of the task ahead silenced them all for a little while after that, and then, before Obi knew it, they had entered A’lkari’s atmosphere and were burning through in a blaze of bright white light.

The planet was dark. Desolate. The only way that Obi could tell it was inhabited was by the sight of the silver city at its crown growing ever larger in the distance. He knew next to nothing about the city. The stories went that it was made entirely out of thracinite, and that rebel corpses swung from pikes in the streets. Legend had it that the palace was at the center, and that Thracin lived there all alone; a king encased in crystal, ruling with an iron fist.

They disembarked, and while there weren’t any corpses, the streets did shine like diamonds, and every single one of them lead towards the castle.

Obi’s robes billowed around him, the heavy material hanging from his shoulders like a death sentence. Asha and Xavior walked behind him, footsteps in synch with the rest of the groups, faces hidden in shadow. Everyone else still believed them to be on the ship. Obi did not know how long it would take for their hosts to discover the three Initiates locked in their cabins, divested of their robes and unconscious. Honestly, he was trying not to think about it.

It was strange, Obi thought, that they parted ways so mutely at the doorway of the palace—Asha and Xavior splitting silently away with one half of the group, while Obi followed the stream of white cloth down another crystal edged hallway. It wasn’t hard to walk with purpose away from the rest of the Initiates and slip into an unmarked passage—wasn’t hard to nod serenely at every sentry he passed until he was so deep into the maze of the palace that he stopped passing them altogether and started looking for a place to wait until their hour long window was up and he could make his way back to the ship, unharmed and unaccosted, to be reunited with the two people who had come to mean so much to him in such a short space of time. He was tucked into a shadowy alcove, thinking about how they hadn’t said proper goodbyes because ‘ _of course, we’ll all make it back, don’t worry’_ and how that might have been incredibly stupid, when Lei’s voice rang out in his head, urgent and loud and terrifyingly close to fearful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Six

[planet: A’lkari]  + [city: Varekith]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Asha followed Xavior solemnly through the hallways of Thracin’s fort. Their scarlet robes glowed in the reflections on the wall—the pure, polished thracinite reflecting them so clearly it was as though twin mirror phantoms moved within the walls. Asha’s robes itched. They had been passed by two pairs of sentries already and received nothing more than a respectful nod either time. Obi’s plan was working like a charm.

“This way,” Xavior muttered, tugging at her sleeve. They moved towards a corridor that branched off from the others. A row of symbols flashed above the entrance. Before Asha could activate her translator, Xavior said,

“It says ‘Holding Cells’.”

“Perfect,” Asha replied. “Let’s do this.”

Now came the tricky part. The part most likely to get them discovered and shot:

Asha was to hack the surveillance cameras for this section of corridor only, and feed back a continuous two second loop of footage that would make the hallway seem unoccupied. This footage would play for seventeen minutes and then imbed itself in the database, replacing the real recorded footage, just in time for the cameras to pick up the next patrol as scheduled. This entire operation had been based off information supplied by Xavior. Who had last been in the holding cells of A’lkari seven years ago, aged ten. Asha repressed the urge to wince.

It was all or nothing. There was too much riding on this to doubt it. Either she would be successful, and they would progress through to the holding cells with seventeen minutes to locate Aziza and extricate her, or Asha would trip the system, causing them to be found and likely executed.

She looked at Xavior.

“You can do this,” he said. “And you’re dead if you don’t so you may as well try.” He paused. “When we get back, I want to talk to you about something. Could we do that?”

Asha nodded, confused, but he smiled at her, bright and winsome, and her fears were allayed. He tapped two fingers to his head in a salute. “I would say good luck, but I don’t think you need it. I’ll keep a look out.”

She nodded, then slipped into the corridor and got to work.

It took fourteen seconds to remove the panel that covered the wiring she needed to reroute.

Twenty seconds to repurpose a spare port hidden under a compressed cover.

Fifteen seconds to input the code—sweaty fingers slipping on her tablet’s screen, hyperaware of every single second ticking by—and integrate it seamlessly with the existing programming.

Nine more seconds to double check her work, to triple check it and then breathe. Once, twice. _Come one Asha. Calm down._

She watched the light in the corner flashing as she screwed it back into place. Red, red, _green_.

She unhooked her keyboard and hid the drive she had installed behind the jumble of pre-existing wires. The panel went on easily, screws twisting into place and sliding home.

The knot in her stomach unraveled. She’d done it. Resisting the urge to slide to the floor in relief, she signaled Xavior.

He peeled away from the wall, already removing his red cloak to reveal the black clothes underneath. There was no reason for an Initiate to visit the holding cells, so from this point onwards, stealth was their ticket in. They stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to face whatever they might find in the cells, be it triumph or loss or neither or both.

Then, against all odds and information and luck of any kind, a lone sentry rounded the corner, gun primed to shoot, barrel glowing, aimed directly at Asha’s head.

They both froze. The sentry pulled the trigger.

Asha experienced the moment in startling clarity and strange stop-motion, as though the things she saw glitched out before she saw them, turning the world to freezeframes around her. The bolt of energy flew from the sentry’s gun, Xavior’s arm clawed at her own, shoving her sideways to crash into the wall—the subsequent momentum putting him directly into the line of fire. His chest absorbed the bolt and convulsed, his whole body going rigid. Asha’s hands scrambled at her belt, drawing her own pistol and firing three bursts of laser fire into the exposed skin between the sentry’s helmet and the shoulder plate of their robotic plated armor.

 _Skin_ , she thought. _That was a sentient. I killed someone_. Then, terribly, _Xavior. Oh my god, Xavior._

She struggled towards him, crawling across the floor. Her head pounded, throbbing from where it had slammed into the wall, her vision spinning. Dimly, she registered footsteps, lots of footsteps, but she couldn’t focus. Xavior’s skin was warm under her hand. She placed her cheek over his mouth, and her hand over his heart and—

Arms yanked Asha off the floor. The barrel of a gun pressed into her abdomen, the sharp prick of a syringe slid into the back of her neck. Unconsciousness slammed into her like a freight train. She felt nothing.

***

 

When she awoke, it was dark. The floor underneath her was hard and cold, leeching the heat from her skin like ink bleeding into clear water. Her breath ghosted through the air in clouds of vapor that dissipated into the eerie stillness without a sound. It was so silent she could hear the beat of her own heart. She couldn’t see a ceiling of any kind—the darkness hung above her like a weight, forcefully reminding her of the way the incense smoke had gathered on the roof of the temple back home as she said her prayers. She wasn’t praying now. Maybe she should have been, but Thracin had taken even that from her, too. Any god she might have lain claim to was long gone; burned along with the books that told the history of her people.

 _Except they’re not really your people, are they?_ she thought.

“Xavior?” she whispered.

No reply.

Her vision swam as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Faint shapes seemed to pierce the space in front of her, looming suddenly as she grew used to the low light and started to make sense of her surroundings.

Her skin prickled.

Pillars of thracinite soared into the sky, stalactites of it stabbing down from the cavernous ceiling. The floor was made from thracinite too, and inside it, set into the crystal-clear stone, were bodies. A screaming mouth gaped up at her. It belonged to one of the creatures she had seen on an Aonian index of conquered species. An Axorath female, her purple skin and milky white eyes preserved forever in the castle of her conqueror. Other bodies were set into the stone, contorted and writhing, as though the crystal had once been water that held a thousand drowning bodies before it had frozen. Asha’s hand lay on top of the body of a Frixion, heads thrown back, the infamous eyes rumored to be able see into a sentient’s soul bloodshot and glazed over, doomed to stare at their fellow subjugates forever. A Telotith, baring his serrated teeth in a final howl lay stretched next to what looked like the remains of a boy with blue skin. Asha turned away and almost retched. A lower-order Chascan.

She had to get out of here. How much time had passed, though? Had Obi made it out?

Their last conversation surfaced in her mind. _I want you to succeed, I want to help you succeed, dammit. You deserve this_.  But she’d failed.

A deep laugh breached the oppressive silence that hung over the room like a fog, rumbling like violent, faraway thunder and threatening to sweep Asha’s feet out from under her. Then, laser fire slammed into the floor beside her, melting the polished surface in a flare of bright light. She barely had time to react before another burst zipped past her and hit a column, stone crumbling. The blasts were coming from behind her, trailing noxious smoke and clouding the air with flickering blue light and black char. She ran forward.

_Thud, thud, thud._

A pillar rose out of the fog ahead of her and she dodged it just in time, only to graze her shoulder on the dagger sharp point of a stalactite stabbing down from the ceiling. Her wound burned. The blasts kept coming. Smoke and mist curled into her eyes, making it impossible to see the hallway that she had gazed so clearly mere moments before.

Her shins slammed into a shelf of rock and she fell, her elbow cracking on the sharp edge above it. Another chunk of rock was blasted away by the laser fire, melting the stone as easily as if it were butter. Holding back screams, she pulled herself to her feet. The shelf of rock was the first stair on a staircase that wound into the sky. She began to climb it, the gunfire following her, never quite hitting her, but conveying its morbid message clearly; she was running for her life. Her lungs heaved and sweat mixed with the tears that poured down her face as she ascended the staircase into the sky.

An unmeasurable amount of time later, she heard the first cry:

“Asha? Asha it’s me, Aziza! You have to help me you have to—” her voice broke off, splitting the air with a blood-curdling scream. Peals of agony ringing out into the silence. The gun shots had stopped, but Asha only ran faster. All her sleepless nights, all the peril and danger and countless trials she had faced on her journey were leading to this moment. Her sister was at the top of that staircase, and she would not, _could not_ , let this opportunity slip out of her grasp. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted? The opportunity to save someone who needed to be saved? They were _torturing_ her up there. She screamed again, and Asha’s heart broke. Determination poured out of the breakage and galvanized her spirit, her steps speeding up as she sprinted up the last few remaining stairs. Then, she crashed through a doorway and into a room where a murderer and a coward who fancied himself a god and a ruler sat on a throne of shining rock beneath a holy flame and laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Asha Dhaka,” he said, and it chilled her to her bones. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Thracin looked everything and nothing like his statues.

In the statues he was huge. Imposing and domineering, the very image of a conqueror on a stolen throne. He was always sitting, with a flame in one hand, and a sword in the other. Now, he was giant sized. His presence filled the room and choked it of all life. Asha had always suspected the sword was a fabrication, artistic license even, but it wasn’t. It hung from his belt, carved of thracinite so highly polished that it glowed. It took all of Asha’s willpower to look away. Thracin owned the room. Every sentient present was turned to face him; poisoned flowers seeking a festering sun. He was smiling, monstrous canines curving savagely over his lower lip, horns curling fiercely behind his ears like a ram’s, the wickedly sharp tips painted gold. His facial structure resembled a wolf’s more closely than anything: ears pricked upwards, eyes forward facing, the inner corners slanted around blazing yellow sclera bisected by a black slit of a pupil. His fur was white, and his teeth were sharp, and he terrified Asha more than anything had ever terrified her before. She was scared enough that the anger she felt constantly almost disappeared.

She cowered before him, and all he did was smile.   

“We’ve been waiting for you,” he repeated slowly. “A very long time.”

He smiled wider. “I was growing concerned that you would not come to this place in my lifetime. It was beginning to upset me. But you’re here now. You’re here. A little smaller than I’d imagined, but your kind always were.”

 _Your kind._ Asha found her voice in a flurry of anger.

“You mean the people you enslave?” Her voice was quiet but steady. “The people you’ve been punishing for half a century for a crime they committed in ignorance?” She spat at his feet. “ _My kind_ are more noble than you’ll ever be.” As soon as she said this, she knew she had made a grievous mistake. The kind of mistake people die for.

Thracin was still. He didn’t lash out, or rage at the disrespect. He was simply still, considering her with his bright, wild looking eyes.

“Who do you think you are, child? What is the blood that runs through your veins? The blood that pumps undeniably through the chambers of your weakling heart?” he stared at her, unflinching and uncompromising. “It isn’t Human, I’ll tell you that for free.”

The weight of what she had known for a very long time now rose up from somewhere within her and settled on her shoulders. She almost collapsed under its weight.

Thracin was still staring at her, evaluating her.

“I’m Chascan,” she said, drawing her head up. “Order of Legend. Lexikklik. Word-whisperer.” As she said the words, she felt the truth in them.

Thracin nodded. “Correct,” he said. “And that makes you royalty. Next in line to a throne that doesn’t exist because I _destroyed it_.” He bared his teeth. “That’s why we’ve been waiting for you, Asha Dhaka. We’ve been waiting for you, because you are the only threat to my rule in this entire universe. Although,” he sneered, “to call you a threat is insulting to me _and_ my soldiers.”

He stood and walked towards her. The ground shook with each footstep. A stalactite loosened from the ceiling and smashed onto the ground, scattering crystal shards over the polished floor.

He reached out a hand, and Asha scrambled backwards, tried to duck and move away, but he grabbed her by her throat and wrenched her from her feet until she was level with his eyes. His claws dug ferociously into her neck, piercing flesh. She felt blood trickling down her skin. Nausea blanketed her vision, turning everything blurry. The only things she could see clearly were Thracin’s eyes, burning into hers, two searing beacons of sickly yellow flame glinting as though he could see the anger that formed the scaffolding of who she was, as though he had heard every lie she had ever told, and tasted every truth on his blood-red tongue and found them wanting.

“But you _are_ a threat, nonetheless, because of what you have the potential to represent. You could be great.” His whisper grated down every vertebra in her spine. The pure malice in his eyes was the sound of a sword’s blade screeching against the whetstone. The way he held her—like she was nothing, like her life was nothing, like he could crush her skull in one hand and feed her broken body to his craven soldiers safe in the knowledge that no one would care—grated against her soul like nails shivering across the surface of polished steel.

“Order of Legend, you say?” He leaned closer, until his wet nose was a breath from her own and the curve of saber teeth ghosted across her cheeks. Her whole body shuddered in disgust. He laughed, and she felt warm, wet air on her skin. “Oh, how far the mighty have fallen.”

Asha’s heart was thudding so fast and so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest. She was certain he could hear it.

Thracin shook his head, curling his lip in disgust, and dropped her, his claws sliding out of the shallow holes they had made in her neck. Pain lanced its way up her left leg, shooting up her thigh as she crumpled to the ground. It took everything she had no to yell out in agony.

“Fortunately for me, revolutions cannot be led by the dead. It was a pleasure.”

He turned to the soldiers standing along the perimeter of the room.

“Kill her.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Seven

[planet: A’lkari]  + [city: Varekith]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

_She is dying, Arἳcoaryuἠ. You have to find her._

The goddesses voice was low but clear, setting Obi’s nerves on edge and shooting chills up and down his spine in their droves. 

It was currently taking everything in him not to run, but he knew that that if he did he would be found out. He had ditched his bulky, attention-drawing robes at her command, throwing them into a shoot that lead straight to the incinerator, and thus burning any alibi he might have for wandering the castle unescorted. Dressed in black, form fitting clothes, he would stand out like a sore thumb, so he settled for walking very, very fast.

 _She does not have long now. Hurry_.

Lei had been whispering things like that in his head for the best part of twenty minutes and it was becoming excruciating. He wanted to scream. He had no idea where Asha was, no idea what it was that had injured her, no idea how to find her. He was beginning to wonder whether he could even trust Lei, but the reality was that he simply had no other choice.    

He rounded a corner, flattening himself against the wall and holding his breath as two sentries clanked past, muttering between themselves. It was a close call. He waited until they were out of earshot, before pressing on, his feet passing silently over the dull metal of the floor.

_She grows ever weaker, Obi Amadi. You must find her. The circle starts here._

What circle? It didn’t make any sense. He quickened his pace, adjusting his breathing accordingly, and soon found the thing he had been hoping for, paneled into the metal wall.  

An air vent, waist height, screws simple. He opened the panel on his arm and pressed a button. Aiming his hand at the vent, the laser scanner built into his palm beamed out, flashing faintly blue, as it collected the relevant information. A loading bar slowly filled slowly, percentages trickling past, and Obi watched in anticipation as it neared its completion and then reached it. He smiled. A map of the vents was downloading directly into small screen on his wrist. A comprehensive map of castle’s air vent system, complete with heat signatures and breathability warnings. Obi flicked a screwdriver from his forefinger and started on the first screw. Then, voices. Obi froze. He was completely exposed where he stooped by the vent, his back to the passageway and the entrances feeding into it.

_You cannot fail at the last hurdle. The circle must commence._

Obi wanted to swat the goddess right out of his head. He couldn’t think, so he didn’t. Grabbing the vent with his left hand—his super strong, indestructible, loathed and loved left hand—and pulled. The vent crumpled under his grip, wrenching away from the wall and falling to the floor. Obi caught it before it could clatter and laid it gently on the floor. The voices were getting closer. They sounded like the same guards from before. He cursed them silently. He had even less time than he’d thought. Grabbing each side of the vent, he pulled himself inside, easing his way through the gap. If anyone saw him now he’d be done for; random pairs of legs hanging out of a hole in the wall beside a mangled vent grill were probably grounds enough to trigger some kind of hostile reaction. Pulling the rest of himself inside the tunnel, he paused, holding his breath, trying to make out the positions of the sentries from their voices. He remembered the map and maneuvered his wrist in front of his face. Two heat signatures were almost upon on him. If they noticed the vent grill he’d—

“What’s this?” A clanging of metal. “Why’s there a crumpled-up vent cover on the ground?”

Obi blanched.

“I dunno,” said another voice. “Maybe repairs?”

“Isn’t the point of repairs to fix stuff instead of mangle it up?”

“Well, yeah, but… but—"

“This seems suspicious to me.”

 _No,_ he mouthed. _Move on, move on, move on._ Desperately, he tried to slide forward in the cramped space, reaching for the corner of the vent tunnel, trying to grasp it and yank himself around it. His palms slipped over the metal, too sweaty to gain traction. He closed his eyes. This was _not_ happening. Using the sides of the vent he managed to slide forward another inch. Then, the side of his boot scraped the vent’s wall, and a screeching sound so piercing it set Obi’s teeth on edge echoed sharply through the small space.

“ _Shit_.”

“Who’s there?” asked one of the sentries.

Obi wracked his brains for an answer, for anything he could say that might explain his situation, before realizing with a jolt that they’d already supplied one:

“Repairs!” he said, in a half-strangled cry. He cleared his throat and tried to deepen his voice. “Repairs. I’m, ah, I’m checking airflow. Measuring oxygen levels. Hydrogen levels. Uh, n—nitrogen levels.” He winced. “That sort of thing. Very important,” he added quickly. “Time sensitive, actually, so…”

“Oh, right,” said the other sentry. “See,” he hissed to his friend. “Repairs. I told you so.”

“Yeah whatever,” his friend whispered back. Then, louder “Do you need any assistance, sir?”

 _Sir? Hah._ Obi could have passed out with relief.

“No, no, lads. I’m perfectly fine,” Obi replied. “You just carry on with your patrol.”

“Divine might is Divine right,” they said in unison. Their version of an affirmative Obi supposed with a shudder.

“Divine might is Divine right,” he mumbled back. Then an idea struck him, “Oh, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“You two are not the first to accost me while I’m working. Do radio around and tell everyone else to ignore any suspicious noises in the vents. It’ll just be me.”

“Of course, sir.”

He heard them clank off down the corridor.

“Oh, thank _God_.”

He didn’t move for an entire minute. The pure refined adrenaline coursing through his veins was too much; his limbs were shaking too hard to grip anything, let alone haul his body through the vents. But Lei’s voice was back, an edge to it now.

_The end is in sight. Soon she will die, just as is foretold._

“Not if I can help it,” Obi ground out, pulling himself around the corner and into a thankfully much larger vent. He began to crawl.

 

***

 

Over half an hour later, Obi was pushing his way out of a vent and into a large room filled with flickering lights.

_You have arrived. Open the circle._

“What circle?” Obi asked, frustrated beyond belief.

_The circle, the prophecy. Its words surround you and your company. You all have a part to play, and yours begins here. You must find the lost one. Her mind wanders throughout this universe, doing another’s bidding. You are so close. Look over the balcony. Look at the light._

Obi blinked. A sinking feeling was starting in his stomach. He began to think that perhaps she was not talking about Asha.  That perhaps she never had been talking about her. The bridge he was standing on creaked as he walked to the opposite side, it’s metal support struts scraping against chains hanging from the underside of the bridge. He looked over the side, and out onto the universe.

It was as though he were hovering above the cosmos. Billions of stars hung immobile in inky blackness, interstellar clouds billowing inside galaxies that hung next to masses of dust and sparkling ice. It was mesmerizing. Then it all expanded, stars rushing past. Vertigo nearly swept Obi to the floor but the swirling mass of stars beneath him wasn’t actually moving. It was a hologram, he could see that now. And it was zooming in on one particular star system.

_Who was controlling it?_

Obi did not know which system this was, or even which quadrant, but he could tell something was off immediately. Two of the six planets were blackened husks, scarred with craters and giant gorges slashed through the crusts right to their dead, icy cores. As Obi watched, the third planet in the system—a pale pink ball of cloudy atmosphere surrounded by three icy rings—began to tip on its axis. Obi looked on aghast, as the planet tilted violently to one side and then began to spin. It was horrifying and unnatural, and made Obi want to reach out through the hologram and set it to rights. He did not know how or why, but he was gripped with the sudden knowledge that the hologram was real. Or at least reflective of real life events.

 _I’m glad you understand._ It was Lei’s voice in his head. Perhaps she had planted the understanding there, too. He had no way of knowing. _She is the beginning. The one who controls it. She who has the power to change planets. To create them and destroy them and re-build them from the ashes. It is a wonder she is mortal. Not even I have the power._

Obi gaped, eyes wide as the planet stopped spinning. Its atmosphere was gone, evaporated into nothing. Continents that Obi had only glimpsed before were cracked and drowning; no match for the centrifugal forces generated by such high-speed rotation. The oceans had amassed at the planet’s equator, draining from its poles to drown the land masses at its middle.

It was pure destruction. Murder on an epic scale. This was bigger than genocide, bigger than interplanetary war—

_There she is. In the center. The one who killed them all. Who has killed billions._

_Terraklikk._

The word echoed through the cavern of his mind. Tolling like a bell struck by a lightning bolt wielded by the weather-worn hand of a titan. It felt ancient and impenetrable. Occult, and dangerous and lonely in the way of a dying star.

He looked towards the center and saw a high-backed chair. There was a whimpering sound on the air. As Obi strained his ears towards it, it grew steadily louder until he realized the high, keening wail he could hear was coming from whoever was sitting there. The wailing became words, and Obi’s heart sank further with every word. _Why was nothing ever fair_ , he wondered. _Why was someone always suffering, and why was that suffering always so, so terrible?_

“ _No_ ,” sobbed the voice. “Please, _no_ , I don’t want to anymore. I never wanted to,”

It was a female voice. Drenched in pain and sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so, so sorry, _it was never meant to be like this_.” She groaned, as though in insufferable, intolerable agony, and Obi realised she must be, _of course_ she must be. Forced to kill billions upon billions—Obi had no doubt the other planets were her handiwork, too—a murderous puppet on murderous strings, forced to dance at the hand of pseudo-god who wanted to destroy and destroy and _destroy_ , and revel, laughing in that destruction.

_Now do you see?_

Obi sank to his knees.

_You have found her. You have watched her. You have opened the circle. The prophecy commences. Well done, Arἳcoaryuἠ. Your name will go down in history._

He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything, I… I could have stopped her, I could still stop her, but I—”

 _You bore witness, and that is enough. You cannot stop her because it is not your part to play. I..._ she paused. _I am sorry._

“You’ve used me,” he said.

_I cannot be faulted for any misconceptions that you—_

“Yes,” Obi said, his voice dangerously quiet, “yes, you can. I thought that ‘she’ was Asha. I thought my friend was dying, and that I was on my way to save her. You knew this was what I believed, and yet you led me further into this maze of a castle, to serve an end that I did not understand. You made me watch a planet die before its time and now you have the gall to call it a _privilege_. You say I cannot stop her because it is not my part to play. How dare you,” he said. “How _dare_ you.”

_I am truly sorry it has come to this. But if you do not fulfill the first instruction then your friend who you love so much will perish, and you will not make it back to your lover alive. He will not be saved. He will die, along with the rest of the city. It is your choice._

Obi could have yelled. He could have raged and cried and screamed bloody murder at the divinity inside his head.

He didn’t.

Obi often thought about George and death when he travelled to the future. For the two years they had been apart, the two years Obi had left in order to search for a new arm, he had travelled through the space and time in a daze, depressed beyond belief, and all the time saddled with the uncomfortable, prickling realization that George was long dead in the future where Obi walked. Obi did not know George’s date of death, had never looked for it, and he intended for it to stay that way until he was there beside him to see him through it. Even now, as he stood inside the depths of the castle on A’lkari, he was existing in a time that George simply did not. He was already dead. Had been for thousands of years. This logic was saddening to the point of madness, and the only reason Obi did not allow it to consume him was because of his self-asserted mandate. Find the cure. Travel back to George in 1814. Take the cure. Lose his powers. Live a long and happy life. Die.

It was simple because simplicity was what Obi craved. Why did everything have to be so complicated? His life had been stupidly convoluted enough already, he just—

“Obi?”

He turned around, shocked, to find Qala’s large eyes blinking down at him.

“Oh,” he breathed. “You’re here. Now.”

She was looking at him strangely, her face pale, posture crooked. Obi glanced down. She was clearly favoring one of her legs, and through her soft, light-colored tunic, blood was spreading like a plague on a battlefield in high summer.

Obi inhaled sharply, “Qala! What happened to you?” He was searching through his pockets for bandages, he knew he’d put them somewhere—

“Why are you on _A’lkari_ , Obi?” she gasped, her voice hoarse with pain. “I—I told you I had the cure. You did not need to come here, it’s not—” she broke off, squeezing her eyes shut. Her legs trembled, then gave out, knees buckling in pain. She folded to the floor, still graceful in her agony.

Obi found the bandages, unspooling them quickly and winding them around her waist, packing the wound with gauze to soak up the blood and add more pressure.

“There are shields around the planet, Obi,” she said, looking up at him. “Against people like me. I did not know you would be here when I cast the spell that would bring me to you. I was ripped through the barriers. I—” she winced. The light from the hologram flickered on her pale, waxy skin “I will not make it back alive.”

Obi felt sick. Too many things were happening at once. First Lei’s deception. Then the hologram and all that _death_. This talk of a prophecy. Now Qala, here to deliver him to his cure, but dying instead. He shook his head violently.

“Yes, you will. And not for my sake, but for yours. Your time isn’t over yet, _it can’t be_.” Tears were running down his cheeks now, dripping to the floor as he stooped over her body where she lay, unmoving except for the flutter of her eyelids.

He felt Lei manifest next to him. A breath of displaced air ghosted across his skin.

“Get away from me,” he murmured, but his voice broke. “I said get _away_ —”

“I can heal her,” she said.

“What?” his voice was flat. It was barely a question.

“I can heal her, if you’d like.”

“If I’d l—” he paused. Collected himself, “Yes, I would like that. And the cost? I’m sure there is one.”

“There is none. I wish only for you to follow me willingly.”

Obi took a deep breath and tried to think of nothing but the immediate present.

“Do it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Eight

[planet: A’lkari]  + [city: Varekith]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

“Kill her.”

Thracin’s command was barely more than a grating whisper, but mere seconds later Asha was surrounded. Guards pressed in on her from every side, hulking Agolith soldiers bristling with artillery, powerful tails coiled and ready to attack. She heard the collective click of approximately fifteen safety catches being flicked off, and the sound was enough to send her spiraling into terror. However warped the context, this was the exact situation her mother had always warned her about back on Gahraan. Guards needed little excuse to kill or severely injure a human, so the formula for survival was taught from infancy in strained whispers behind the relative safety of closed doors. Her mother’s voice told her to kneel, but her knees would not bend. Her mother’s voice told her to bow her head and avert her eyes. Asha could feel the hands of the rulers that had gone before her straightening her spine and lifting her chin. She looked Thracin right in his sickening, furious eyes and glared at him. Her mother’s voice was screaming at her now, telling her that silence was her ally, that muteness could not be perceived as insubordination—

But something ancient feeling and powerful inside her blinked open a bright and shining eye and urged her to _speak_.

So, she did.

“Stop.”

A pulse of feeling shot through her like blood out of an open wound, and suddenly the anger that bristled under Asha’s skin, the rage that was never more than a breath or two away, became immediate and all-encompassing. It tore through her lungs and ripped its way out of her mouth, stripping away the flesh of her throat and the sadness that lived there and replacing it all with white hot righteous fury, and she screamed.

“ _Stop_.”

Dimly, she became aware that her left eye was aching, and that a warm wetness was dripping down her cheek. She wiped the blood off her face with the back of her hand and spat out the clot of it slowly filling her mouth with the acrid taste of iron. Then, she lifted her head, and she smiled.

The dynamic of the throne room had changed significantly in seconds. The girl who had cowered at the feet of the soldiers who had persecuted her her whole life, now stood among them with nothing to fear. They were all frozen, existing in a state of suspended animation, their expressions and movements and thoughts all halted precisely at the moment Asha had commanded it to be so. The air was completely still. The fires that had flickered in the braziers on the walls were also paused, flames motionless and frozen.

Thracin was the only thing in the room that had escaped her command. She didn’t know how. She supposed she should have foreseen it—if there was even the possibility she posed a threat to him _surely_ he wouldn’t have allowed her anywhere near—but she was already so out of her depth.

He was looking at her. He did not seem afraid, or angry or surprised. Instead, an intelligent curiosity that chilled Asha to her core stared unflinchingly at her from inside his eyes.

A girl with brown skin and fiercely curling hair, whose determination was etched into every line of her face stared down the monster that had enslaved her and the rest of her race, and realized with a shock so cold it felt like icy, that while it was true he was a monster, he was also something more than that. She had wanted for so long to think of him insane, as deranged and unhinged. A madman dictator whose commands were interpreted by soldiers who subsisted off violence and carried them out the only way they knew how: brutally and without compromise. This was the only way she could explain his actions to herself and have them make even the tiniest shred of sense. But as she looked at him, at the sneering curl of his lip, and glint of his sharpened sword, at the way he held himself; like he truly was god and everyone else his creation, existing at his mercy, and then downwards at the sentients encased in the crystal of the floor, Asha realized he was just as sane as anyone else she had ever met, he simply wore it differently.

He sneered at her because she _was_ nothing. A little girl playing at being a vigilante, playing at being a hero. And maybe it _was_ true that she had power, and a planet that in another life would have been hers, but this was _this_ life, and that planet and its people were gone. Destroyed by the thing that stood in front of her and smiled in the destruction. Thracin held himself like he was a god because he was as good as. He killed entire planets, destroyed civilizations so that he could build the world he wanted. Had she not prayed to him and _sacrificed_ for him, however unwillingly? His soldiers died for him, _wanted_ to die for him, and kept laying down their lives without question or hesitation; the Consortium didn’t conscript, they _crusaded_. Sentients the universe over believed in him. Believed he was making a better world, but these people did not know the cost of a life, as they had always had one worth living and were so far removed from the bloodshed and the servitude that they could convince themselves that those being killed somehow deserved it, that they were made for death, just like Thracin said.

 _I’ll kill you,_ she thought. _You will die at my hand._ _As of now, Ai’Varek Thracin is a marked man. I’ll—_

There was a voice. Whispering in her ear. Softer than water over pebbles. Lighter than air.

“Stay still. We must leave.”

Asha’s whole body tensed, ready for flight, but the voice told her not to move.

“Not yet. Not yet…”

Thracin narrowed his eyes at her. Then his expression changed, eyes widening, mouth snarling, sabre teeth bared in a frenzied roar.

“No!” he cried, and his eyes were pure fury, untamable, indomitable, unafraid. He reached for his gleaming crystal sword at the same time that Asha felt a _body_ materialize behind her. A hand with skin as richly black as the sky at night threaded through with golden veins and nails as sharp as knives grasped her arm and _tugged_. Thracin’s sword sang as he wrenched it from its scabbard, it’s razor-sharp blade flashing in the light—crystal and gold gleaming—as he ran towards her, bringing it up in a swinging arc above his head. Time seemed to slow down. Asha could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, could see the desperation in them, and impossibly, the _fear_ , could see the back of his blood-red throat as he opened his mouth in a war cry, and the dark wetness of his snarling nose—

“ _Now_ ,” whispered the voice, and then she was falling.

 

***

 

Asha opened her eyes with a gasp and shudder as the world reformed itself in front her. She spun around, trying to find out who had spirited her away, and came face to face with a girl so beautiful and dangerous looking her heart missed a beat. Asha stuttered, trying to find the words she was looking for, trying to find anything, but couldn’t.

The girl’s skin was black velvet, her face framed by hair that hung in glossy sheets, threaded through with gold. Her eyes were angular, narrow and luminous, her pupils tawny gold. Asha couldn’t look away. Two perfectly symmetrical lines traced their way down her cheeks, like she had wept molten gold and let it dry there.

“I—” Asha said.

“Asha!” Obi’s voice was hoarse and ragged. She whipped around, tearing her eyes from her apparent savior to locate him. _How was he here? How was_ she _here?_

As she turned to find him, she became aware of several things.

Firstly, they were not alone. Asha and the girl stood on a narrow bridge, stretching from one side of the room to the other overlooking a hologram so complex that Asha’s vision swam the second she even thought about trying to comprehend it. Two other figures stood on a bridge parallel to theirs, shrouded in shadow on the opposite side of the room. The hologram pulsed and glowed between them. One of the figures was Obi; Asha would have known this in her sleep. The other was taller, unnaturally tall, and thin, with a build she had seen somewhere before but couldn’t quite pin down.

The second thing she realized was that in the middle of the hologram sat a woman. At first, Asha thought she had tentacles sprouting from her head and her arms and her chest, but that didn’t seem right. She blinked, activating the zoom function on her implant. He vision tunneled, and then expanded. This was how she realized the third and final thing.

The tentacles weren’t tentacles, but hollow tubes, and they were feeding the woman with chemicals that raced through tubes and glowed in such a sickly, radioactive way that Asha thought she might be sick if she looked for too long. Then she saw the woman’s face. Truly saw it.

“ _Aziza_ ,” Asha breathed. _My sister, my sister._ Her throat felt instantly tight. “What have they done to you?”

And then she was running. Her footsteps shook the bridge, clanging against the metal, causing the support struts to creak and groan. If she hadn’t realized there had been guards in the room before who had simply been unaware of her presence, she had no choice but to notice them now. A figure loomed in front of her, baton in hand, and she didn’t even think before she shot, gunning him down and pushing his falling body over the side of the bridge. The crash echoed throughout the hangar, prompting the crackle of comms units and curt commands to _find_ and _kill,_ but she didn’t care. Reaching the steps that led to the floor, Asha vaulted over the side, flinging out an arm to grab the hand rail and slow her descent. Metal screeched against her bare palm, the searing friction ripping skin from her hand as her body smashed into the side of the stairwell. She cried out and let go, falling the rest of the way to the floor. Tucking herself into a ball to minimize the effects of the impact, she rolled, jumping to her feet and looking up to find herself staring down the glowing barrel of a gun. She dropped to her knees and kicked, sweeping the sentry of his feet and shooting him, once, twice—

“Asha watch out!”

She turned around just in time to see two more guards barreling towards her, blasters drawn. They started shooting, and she threw herself behind one of the bridges support struts, but not before a blazing bolt of pure pain slammed into her arm, melting her clothing and charring her skin. She whimpered, gasping in agony— _hold it together, hold it together_ —as she ran from one support strut to the next, shooting all the time, until the blaster fire stopped. She peeked out from behind the last strut but whipped her head back when laser fire slammed into the wall next to her. So, they were waiting her out. Well, she didn’t have time for that. Asha reached into her pocket and withdrew a grenade. She really should _not_ have even thought about using it in such close quarters, but rules had never really been her thing anyway. She pulled the pin and lobbed it, then crouched down, covered her ears and whispered a desperate prayer for the safety of the people on her side. The resulting bang was unlike anything Asha had ever heard or felt. She was thrown a few feet, crumpling against the wall at her back. Her teeth vibrated, feeling like they had been knocked loose and were now rattling around inside her skull. She couldn’t hear. The world was completely silent, completely still.

She opened her eyes, and sound came rushing back. She viewed the repercussions of her actions as the dust settled on dead bodies and debris.

Her sister slumped in her chair on the far side of the room. Some of the tubes feeding had split in the explosion and now leaked sludgy liquid all over the floor. One puddle sizzled, eating away at the metal.

_What had they been putting in her body?_

Asha rose shakily from her slumped position on the floor and started to limp over to where her sister sat.

Aziza looked emaciated, and Asha was used to malnutrition, used to hollow cheeks and dry, peeling skin, but they never starved on Gahraan, not really, because dead slaves were wasted money, so she had never quite seen… this. Aziza’s skin was thin and sallow, a yellowish membrane, where it should have been a lustrous brown. Her hair was gone, as if it had ever existed, shorn to nothing but uneven black stubble. Her cheeks were more than sunken; They caved into her face, her skin clinging to her skeleton, sinking into the cavities of her eye sockets.

She was barely recognizable. In fact, Asha did not know how she had recognized her from the bridge. It was only now she knew it was Aziza that she could see similarities between the image she held in her head—the image she had fabricated—and this gaunt, skeletal ghoul of a woman.

 _You recognized her because it was necessary,_ said a foreign voice. It was the girl’s voice. Asha looked upwards to the bridge but saw no one. When she looked back down, the girl was standing in front of her, her back to Asha, looking at Aziza. She turned around.

“You recognized her because I helped you to.” She was speaking slowly, as though talking to a child, and Asha would have been offended, would have drawn her gun and demanded she tell her who she was, but something about the quality of the girl’s voice stopped her.

“Do you recognize me for what I am, Asha Dhaka? Would you like me to tell you?”

Asha stared, uncomprehending.

Then, the girl began to rise.

Toe by perfect toe, she became untethered from the earth. Like vapour rising from the oases in high summer, her feet lifted clean off the ground. All Asha could do was watch, enraptured, at such a blatant display of raw power. The thought came to her mind fully formed, as though plucked from the air; _she is divine._

Her hair, roped into braids, fanned out around her face, floating like seaweed through air that seemed almost as viscous as honey. She raised her arms, a puppeteer preparing with unyielding focus for the curtain to lift, fingers crooked and perfect, then snapped her wrists upwards, placing her palms together in front of her face, then pulling them apart until only the fingertips met. Her shining eyes met Asha’s dull ones, and she smiled. Heat rose to Asha’s cheeks, and for one glorious moment, she believed herself to be inherently good. This troubled her on such a profound level that she was unable to articulate it, and so remained silent. Later, she realized that the troubling thing was her own denial of the fact. The way she did not believe the word ‘good’ could ever apply to her nature.

Then, the goddess, for that was what she was, (Asha could not pretend otherwise, not when the truth hovered so miraculously in front her very eyes) separated her fingertips with a crack so loud Asha thought momentarily that lightening had split the ceiling. A burst of golden light exploded from the space between her hands, and Asha knew she should avert her eyes for fear of being blinded but she couldn’t. The brighter it grew the less she wanted to look away, and the more she realized that if she didn’t see this light grow to its completion, something terrible would happen. Then the light was shrinking into a sphere that pulsed and glowed with energy, that the goddess held unflinchingly between two palms. It was a riot of light, a collection of dreams, a palm sized world of knowledge, and Asha felt herself straining closer, _closer_ , desperate to touch it, to taste it, to breathe it in. The goddess laughed inside her mind at her desperation and said, simply:

_Take it._

So, she did, and it was as if she were reborn.

She was blind, yet could see everything that had ever been. She was deaf, yet she heard every word ever uttered, every song ever sang, every sigh that had ever fallen from forlorn and weary lips. She was incorporeal, yet she was certain had a body, and that it was the universe.

And for a moment.

For a single redefining, weightless moment, she was no longer angry.

Asha felt so unbearably _light_ as a result of this that she began to cry.

The first memory, when it came, was blunt enough to trip her, but not so sharp she cut herself.

The others, however…

 The others made her bleed and made her scream and flayed the love from the surface of her heart in cruel, agonizing strokes.

The first memory was about a girl, and the day she was ripped from her mother’s arms by soldiers bearing the black and white stripes of the Consortium. 

_They came in the early morning, their visors glowing red in the light of the rising sun. The girl was lifted bodily from her young mother’s arms, snatched away as compensation for a crime never committed. She was too shocked to cry._

_She would never see her mother again._

The second was about a spaceship and a journey that stretched forever into the heavens, until the heavens turned black and space turned blacker, and she was told to call the dark planet in the distance _home_.

_There were no stars in the sky above the dark planet. She had tried so many times to find them._

_There was a monster, though, and he was king. She visited him every day. Sat on his knee, even though his teeth scared her so badly she cried, and his eyes were so fierce she thought he might eat her. They told her to call him Emperor, or Exalted, and she did, even when her voice shook and her chin trembled. One day he told her to call him Father, though she did not know what that meant. Then he told her she was special, and that she would save the world._

The third memory was about a chair, and a game that she played and played and played, and always won, and about a throne and an offer to rule.

_Her legs dangled off the edge of the chair that Father put her in. He stroked her face and told her not to worry as they slid lots of pointy, painful of needles under her skin and wriggled them into her veins. He told her it was all a game, even though it didn’t look like any game she had played before, and that he just wanted to see if she was any good. He told her that in the game she was a god, just like him, and that he wanted her to find some rocks in space and make a planet out of them, just for fun. He flicked a switch and model of the universe stuttered to life right in front of her eyes. A hologram that let her move planets and collect debris from space to make new ones. When she used the hologram, Father told her to imagine it was real. He told her that if she used it right, she would feel powerful. Like electricity in her blood, or pure light instead of bones._

_The first time it happened she screamed so hard she threw up and burst a blood vessel in her eye._

_Electricity in her blood, he’d said and he’d been right._

_Soon, the instructions became harder, but that was just because she was getting better at the game. She no longer felt sick. She felt okay. Sometimes she even felt good. Father didn’t come and see her as much anymore. But he still gave her instructions. Make a planet with a breathable atmosphere. Make a planet that’s all ocean, then freeze it. Make a planet out of gas and make it weightless. Make a planet of metal that stays molten. Make a planet with four magnetic poles and large deposits of a self-replenishing shining crystal strong enough to build palaces from._

_Then, one day, Father told her that the game was different because the rules were now different. He told her that the only way to keep playing was either to fix the planets that did not obey the new rules, or, to take them out of the game altogether. He showed her what these planets looked like, and when she pointed out that they were some of the most beautiful ones in the galaxies, he told her that the only beautiful thing was power, and that these planets did not have that. He told her how he wanted them to be altered, and which ones he wanted destroyed, and if he wanted it to happen in a big explosion, or slowly, with lots of disasters and poisonous gasses rising out of the planet’s crust._

_She didn’t want to at first, but over time she became exceptional at this._

_She became so incredible at doing this, in fact, that Father told her if she agreed to do this for him all her life, she could have a throne next to his one day and be a real-life princess._

_Then, she grew up._

The fourth memory was about hatred. Hatred of the monster she called Father, hatred of his sick game that she knew now to be terribly, tragically real. Hatred of herself for being so weak. For being so stupid. For genocide upon genocide committed willingly by her hand. The hatred was burning, so innate and so sickening, that as Asha felt it, even before she lived the memory, she began to cry uncontrollably.

_She sat in the chair, sobbing as her hands moved over the hologram. She couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t live with herself, couldn’t—_

_But Father had told her what he would do with her, to her, if she didn’t. He had said that if she wasn’t careful, that if she refused to play the game, he would—_

_Revulsion welled up, leaking out of her through the tears that fell weakly down her cheeks. She had been crying for days. Crying as she ended billions upon billions of lives at the request of a monster who had threatened nothing less than rape at his hand if she didn’t._

_The first time she tried to kill herself, she was twelve years old._

The fifth, sixth and seventh memories were the ones that sent Asha to her knees screaming bloody murder through her tears and hugging her ribs so tightly she could barely breathe.

The eighth memory was the last, and it was this one that undid her completely.

_She sits in the chair, looking down at the tubes that slide under her sallow, wrinkled up skin, trying to remember her name. She blinks at the hologram that surrounds her, and thinks, ‘I hold the fate of worlds in my hands, and yet I am powerless. I cannot even die. I cannot even do that.’_

_‘What is my name? I—'_

_‘I don’t…’_

_She remembers warm, brown hands, and a smile, but that is all._

_‘Who are you?’_

_‘Did you do this to me? Did you give me this power?’_

_She thinks,_

_‘He is nothing without me._

_And that is why I must die.’_

_‘I couldn’t live with myself, knowing what I’ve done, even if I tried.’_

Asha shook her head.

“No,” she whispered, and it echoed.

“ _No_!”

It was too much, this was all _too much—_

Then the memories fell away, and everything was dark except for the broken, pixelated remains of the hologram, glimmering sickly in the corner of the room, taunting her.

The goddess was standing on the floor now, right in front of Asha, her hands wrapping slowly around Asha’s own.

“Now do you know who I am? What I am?” she asked, and her voice still sounded like redemption, still tasted like deliverance.

Asha nodded. She knew everything.

“Do you know what you have to do?”

Asha didn’t reply. Separating their hands, she began to limp towards her sister. Every step she took felt foretold. Every breath she inhaled felt like prophecy.

The chair, when she reached it, turned. Her sisters hollow face greeted her, eyes closed in sleep, or at least the chemical imitation of one.

“Aziza,” Asha said. “ _Wake up_.”

The jolt of power that went through her was nearly familiar. The energy it stole pulsing out of her like a gout of blood from an open wound.

Aziza’s eyes opened, and Asha found she did not know what to say.

Her sister’s face hovered on the edge of fearful confusion, but any emotional response to Asha’s presence was clearly dulled by the drugs. It was probably better that way. Asha looked again at the bones that poked through her skin and thought miserably that sedation had to be better than the pain one must incur as a result of dying slowly for nearly twenty years.

“I’m here, Aziza,” Asha said. “I’m you sister.”

Aziza blinked slowly, her eyes reddened and large in sunken sockets. “Sister?”

Asha’s heart broke at the single, slurred word. A sob heaved its way through her chest.

“You don’t know me,” Asha said, reaching up a hand to stroke her sister’s soft, papery skin, “but I love you.” She swallowed. “I love you so much.”

Aziza looked upset. She was frowning, her mouth turned down. Her hand was moving feebly, as though she wanted to reciprocate the gesture, but couldn’t.

“Don’t… don’t cry,” Aziza murmured, her voice rough and weak. “Don’t cry, sister.”

Asha sobbed.

“We don’t have much time, I—I wish we could have had more time,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I needed you, Aziza. I needed you and you weren’t there because they _took_ you, and they did so many terrible things. You could have been happy. You—” she broke off, stifling another sob with the back of her hand. “You didn’t deserve any of this. God, you’re so brave. My brave sister. Braver than me.” She gripped Aziza’s thin hand in hers, felt the bones move beneath the skin. “In another life, we were all happy,” she said fiercely, staring into her sister’s eyes through the tears, as though she could fit a lifetime of happiness inside a single second. As though she could erase a lifetime of pain in the time it took to blink. “In another life, we were _free_.”

She looked into her sister’s face and saw her struggling to speak, to form words.

“A—are you,” she coughed, and Asha heard a rattle in her chest that sounded deadly. “H—Happy _now_?” Her voice rasped, as though sandpaper had been taken to her throat.

Asha’s vision blurred. She nodded.

There were tears in Aziza’s eyes. “What was your life like?” She whispered, reverent.

Asha heard her unspoken words as clear as day. _I want to know what it could have been like. For me._

She shut her eyes.

“Please, sister,” Aziza whispered.

“I—” Asha was crying so hard she couldn’t see. She needed to pull it together, she needed to find the words…

“I wanted to be a pilot,” she said. “And they told me I couldn’t but I learned anyway.”

Aziza smiled a broken looking smile.

“I went to space, went to _jail_. God, Mum would be so angry if she knew.”

Aziza coughed again, and Asha realized that it was the weak beginnings of a laugh. What a wonder that she still knew how to do that. What a wonder that she had ever even learned.

“I made a friend,” she said. “A best friend. His name is Obi and he saved my life. He’s the only person who’s ever seen the truth in me.” She squeezed Aziza’s hand gently. “You two would get on, I think.”

Aziza nodded slowly, the small smile never leaving her face.

“I’ve learnt so much about myself. About who I am. About what I really, truly want.” Her sister nodded, as if prompting her to continue, “I… I used to think I wanted to save people, to save their lives, but now I know it’s not that.” She hung her head, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I—I just wanted to feel needed,” she whispered. “I wanted to feel needed in a way that was… that was my choice, and not the choice of a man I’d never met, who was using me to his own selfish, _selfish_ end.”

Her sister closed her eyes, and Asha knew she understood. Better than anyone alive.

“And I loved you,” she said. “Even though I didn’t know you. Because that’s what family is.”

She brought her sister’s hand to her chest where her heart beat, strong and true.

“None of this is right, Aziza,” she said. “None of the things that happened to you were right. But you don’t have to do this anymore.”

She pulled out her gun.

“I—I won’t let you suffer anymore. I won’t let him use you.”

She heard Obi shout from the balcony, heard the clang of the stairs as he raced towards her, to stop her.

“Nothing you did was your fault. You can rest now, Az. You—you can finally rest.”

Her breaths were ragged, ripped through with violent sobs. Her heart felt slashed to pieces and imploded, reduced to bloody scraps of flesh.

_I couldn’t live with myself, knowing what I’ve done, even if I tried._

Asha slid her gun into the space between them and fired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Forty-Nine

[planet: A’lkari]  + [city: Varekith]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

 

Obi clattered down the last of the steps and sprinted towards Asha. Just as he reached her, Lei materialized in front of him and held out her hand.

“Stop.”

He nearly collided with her. Moving to shove her aside, he froze, remembering what she was.

He could hear Asha crying, sobbing her apologies into her sister’s chest.

Her _dead_ sister’s chest.

“ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”_ She heaved the words out through jagged breaths, her voice raw and guttural. A wounded wolf howling to the moon. A desperate girl turned sister-killer, and for what? Obi didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, unless…

 _Could you live with yourself?_ Lei asked inside his head. Her mouth remained unmoving, but her tawny eyes gleamed, flintlike in the dark. _Would you not also beg for death from the first person capable of offering it to you? She was already weak. Already dying. And so, so important to that thing that calls himself emperor, that it was a mere mercy to end her life. Killing her sister was the only thing your friend could have done that would have made any difference. Now, Thracin’s powers are greatly diminished, and there is one less tortured soul in the universe. It is like I said; mercy._

Obi was speechless.

“We must go. Your friend will guide us now that she is healed. There is a place, far from here, where they know of the prophecy and how to interpret it. That is where we must go.”

Obi nodded silently. This was out of his hands. This was bigger than… than everything. He realised that now.

Looking past Lei, he watched Asha for a moment. He could not comfort her. This was the kind of grief that would take lifetimes to overcome, and lifetimes more to make peace with.

It was with immense sadness that he let himself wonder how long it would take for her to stop hating herself over it.

 _Maybe she’s counting on something, too_ , he’d said, a lifetime ago to a wild-looking girl in the belly of a stolen spaceship. _She just doesn’t know it’s you yet._ Nausea rose in his throat; in a sick, twisted way, he’d been right.

He felt Qala come to stand beside him. Her spindly, scarred fingers gripped his shoulder and he leant into the support. He looked up at her, and she looked down at him.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

Obi watched as Lei approached Asha, her feet making no noise. She turned to look at them and beckoned for them to join her. She placed one hand on Asha’s hair, and joined her other with Obi’s prosthetic one. Qala took his right hand, and then placed her other palm on Asha’s shoulder. She was still crying. Her shoulders shuddered with each breath, her fingers grasping weakly at her sisters threadbare clothing.

Lei locked eyes with Qala.

“Ready—”

“Wait!” Obi cried. “There’s a boy, he came with us. He doesn’t deserve to be left.” He thought of Asha’s smile and quiet blushes. He was doing this for her. She had already suffered one loss, and Obi knew the two weren’t even remotely comparable, but there simply didn’t need to be another. There was also the thought in the back of his mind:

_She’ll need someone when I’m gone._

Lei nodded, a strange emotion flashing across her features. _Regret?_ It was quickly covered by her usual solemnity, her features becoming almost blank once again.

“Yes,” she said. “He is also needed.”

“He should have been with her...” Obi said. “I don’t know where he is now.”

Lei waved a hand. “The prophecy will deliver him to us, in time.”

Obi’s heart sank. He felt, not for the first time in his life and not for the last, completely, utterly powerless.

Qala gripped his hand tighter.

Lei’s eyes blazed brilliantly with a piercing golden light, and then he was falling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifty

[planet: Aonia]  + [The Palace of Mirrors ]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

Asha’s body slammed into the ground. The impact was enough to knock her breath from her lungs and dissolve her vision into shards of bright light.

She heaved in a breath, her throat still searing and raw from her sobs. Everything hurt. She didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to think or feel or talk or even breathe ever again. Curling up into a ball, she hugged her knees to her chest and pressed her eyelids against her kneecaps so hard she began to see white, but that did not—could not—vanquish the twin specters that loomed in her mind like vengeful ghosts. Thracin, lips pulled back, teeth bared and eyes gleaming. And then her sister, skin sallow, fingers skeletal, looking so _used,_ the soft glow of the gun’s barrel against her stomach—

Another sob tore its way out of her throat.

She was a murderer.

Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, and it was a testament to her grief that she did not fight them off. She hung limp, as an arm slid under her knees and lifted her, the other carefully supporting her neck.

“It’s okay, Ash. It’s all going to be okay.”

She shook her head weakly, looking up into Obi’s concerned eyes.

“No,” she whispered. “Nothing is ever going to be okay ever again.”

He closed his eyes and started walking.

Dimly, she heard voices. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but her translator chip was flashing wildly. Not the Universal Dialect, then.

One of the voices addressed Obi directly. The voice was harsh and grating, old-sounding and scary. Asha buried her face in Obi’s chest. She could hear his heartbeats.

“Give us the girl,” the voice said. “She must know of her fate, of all of your fates, as soon as possible. We must act now, or it will be too late! She needs to—"

Obi jerked to the side, as if shielding her with his own body.

“What she needs,” he whispered, as though he thought she could not hear. “Is rest and medical attention. She has been shot, teleported a great distance, and suffered severe emotional trauma. Get her to a medical facility or so help me god—” he broke off, his voice choked. “You don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I know everything about you, Obi Amadi.”

Asha felt his body stiffen. The familiarity of the voice grated at her.

“Order is the Architect,” the voice continued. “And Order demands that she meets her fate.”

Distantly, Asha felt Obi go completely rigid at those words. Then she felt him begin to shake. He was barely holding _himself_ together, but still he stood between her and them, whoever they were. A clear thought struck her through the hazy fog of her mind.

 _They were meant to be a_ team _, weren’t they?_

Shaking her head more forcefully this time, she pushed at him, wriggling in his grasp.

“Asha, what—”

She slid out of his arms, landing on the floor. Dragging herself to feet, she blinked blearily in the bright light. The walls of the strange room were made of a clear, glass-like substance that forced the light in at odd angles and made her head hurt even more than it already did. She cradled her right arm close to her chest, the wound in her shoulder pulsing sharply with pain.

“I know about the prophecy,” she gasped out.

The assembled group could not have looked more shocked if they’d tried. They were a mismatched and motley crew of sentients, Asha thought. At least five distinct species stood before her, all wearing long black robes each embroidered with their own distinct pattern. The majority had drawn the cowls of their cloaks low, hiding their faces in shadow, but a few had elected not to. There was the tall one from the bridge, her bare skull ringed with pointed tattoos and silvery scars, her eyes round and glistening, and another Asha didn’t recognise, who was standing next to—

 _“You,”_ she said.

Suddenly she felt infinitely younger, and a million worlds removed from this one.

 _We will meet again on a planet far from here,_ he had said. _You will be reeling with loss_ , _there will be blood on your hands._

She felt the phantom chill of betrayal in her blood.

_I will be your only hope._

The Sentinel bared his needle teeth in a mocking smile.

“Welcome to the Order, Knight.”

Her temper snapped. Asha lunged, shoving obstacles out of her way that she realized belatedly were sentient bodies. If she’d had a knife she no doubt would have used it to carve her path straight towards the Sentinel. She saw his eyes widen, but her arm was already swinging. A sickening crunch sounded as her fist connected with his face. Black blood smeared across her knuckles, her hand throbbed. She swung again, and again. She wanted to keep punching, keep swinging and connecting and hurting until she couldn’t separate herself from her actions and the violence swallowed her whole.

“You _knew_!” she shouted at him, “You knew I would have to kill her and you _let me do it_.” Her voice was hoarse and wild. Feral, savage, rabid _fury_ —

Arms grabbed her, pulling her off and away. She kicked and struggled but whoever restrained her was far stronger. In the end, she hung limply, breathing harshly and glaring at the Sentinel with all the rage she had collected over the past weeks. In her mind, he could have stopped all of this. In her mind, it was his fault.

The Sentinel smiled, needle teeth stained black with blood. “But it’s who you are. Knights are made for killing and that’s exactly what you did. You, who came from nothing. The Knight of _Legend_ Order, arrived to save the galaxy.”

It was a damning proclamation if ever there was one, the truth of it thudding into her and sliding sharply home like a dagger buried to the hilt inside the cavern of her chest. She wanted to gasp, to fight for breath, to gather up the blood spilling from her heart and shove it all back inside. She was not equipped to deal with this.

Asha let her eyes turn blank. Then, she let the girl who worked the factory lines claw her way out of the crawlspace she had been assigned inside Asha’s chest and assume full control. Obedience. Submission. Somewhere within herself she was repulsed by this to the point of violent nausea, but she couldn’t help it. This was how she would survive; it was how she had _always_ survived, and instinct was instinct no matter how many light years and hyperspace jumps and space stations away you were from your past.

“Our scholars have spent centuries poring over scraps of prophecy and listening to mere whispers carried on the winds of time,” the Sentinel was saying in his voice like jagged rock. “Even before Thracin, we searched. We knew he was coming and that he would bring the end of life as we knew it, so we lay in wait, _preparing_. We have dedicated eons to excavating and translating and preserving the little information we do have,” his eyes were hungry. “You claim you know the prophecy, yet this cannot be true… Prove it. Tell us.”

Silence fell. Ten pairs of awestruck eyes found her face and waited.

“Asha, you don’t have to do this.”

It was Obi. Loyal, loyal Obi who had been so brave for her so many times and still thought himself a coward. Obi who loved so much and so completely and was so deserving of a happy ending, and who almost knew her better than she knew herself by now. Obi who had someone waiting for him back home, and a life to live in which he could be happy.

Obi, who needed a cure and the cooperation of those assembled to get any of those things. Asha opened her mouth and let the words flow, drawing them up from that bottomless place inside her that brimmed with power, allowing them to pour from her lips, carried on the breath from her bloodied, sob-raw lungs.

 

“ _Lost, one must wander_

_Found, one must plunder,_

_The shield and the crown then the sword,_

_No surrender_.”

 

Mutterings broke out but were swiftly silenced by the Sentinel. He gestured for her to continue.

 

_Trial the first sees spires of ice,_

_an allegiance is forged in desperate times,_

_The second a mountain, an unpayable price,_

_Where wills shall be tested—a battle fought thrice._

_Trial the third, is trial the last, and will reveal all the secrets hid by the past_.”

 

Obi was looking at her strangely. He was wondering how long she’d kept this from him. She averted her eyes.

 

“ _Two warring futures, like blades clashing, sing,_

_The darkness will rule, this dead, godly thing,_

_A guide taken home. A goddess. A ring._

_The Kingdom-less crowns himself; unworthy king_.”

 

Obi’s eyes widened. _A guide taken home._ He had come to the same conclusions she had.

 

_“And in the end, when the dust has turned golden,_

_conqueror meets conquered, and the last piece is stolen,_

_The knight rises up, but falls and is broken,_

_To doom or to glory, the choice is the chosen’s.”_

 

She stopped speaking, and it felt like the words had been a conduit from her body to some source of power, because as soon the last syllable left her mouth all her strength vanished, and her legs gave out. She crumpled to the floor.

“She has been drawing on ancient powers,” said the Sentinel. “The words need so much energy to manifest… it is a wonder she breathes at all. Quick,” he motioned to Obi, “we need to get her to the healing bay.”

This time, when her friend lifted her she did not struggle.

“What is happening?” Obi muttered to himself. “What does it _mean_?”

She didn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

She told him this even though she did not think her being sorry made any difference whatsoever. She told him this to convince herself that she was still Human. That she was capable of emotions other than anger. That she wasn’t a murderer, not really because—

 _I loved you,_ she had said, looking into her newly-found, soon-to-be-dead sister’s eyes. _Even though I didn’t know you. Because that’s what family is._

She thought briefly of green hands, and sharp teeth and a body falling to the floor, unmoving. _All my fault._  

She turned her face into Obi’s chest and let the tears fall. His arms tightened protectively around her even though they shook.

 _At least we have each other,_ she thought. Then she let the darkness take her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifty-One

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 George was still struggling to comprehend the sheer magnitude of illegalities they were committing by even _thinking_ of destroying the crown jewels, but they needed more time, and this was the only way to get it.

_These jewels are your Attica. Remember that._

Alarick slipped around the corner just behind him, silent and still.

“As the monarch, is it even possible for me to commit treason?” George whispered.

“Never you mind,” Alarick replied. “We need more time to save the city, and the only way to get that time is to destroy as many Artifacts as possible and beg as much time as we can from the apparitions attached.”

“And these… apparitions. You said they would take the form of whoever the object meant the most to?”

“Yes and no. Nostalgia is a difficult thing.”

“It’s a combination of two Greek words,” George supplied not unhelpfully. “ _Nostos_ , meaning homecoming and _á_ _lgos_ , meaning pain. Painful homecoming; agonizing remembrance.”

Alarick said nothing.

They rounded the last corner, and then they were standing in front of the vault that held the symbols of an empire.

“How do we get in?” George asked. “How did I not think about this?”

But Alarick was already reaching into his pocket to withdraw a small silver device that looked like a pen. He clicked the top, and a slim groove in the side began to fill with turquoise light.

“Stand back,” he said.

George didn’t move. The light was mesmerizing.

“Your call,” Alarick said, and pointed the pen at the door.

A thin beam of searingly bright light shot out of the end, colliding with the door, and cutting through it. George flinched back from the light and the molten metal. By the time he looked back, there was a long, straight groove cut into the vault door.

“What is that thing?” he asked. “How did you… how did you _do_ that?”                                                    

Alarick shrugged, “Pays to be from the future, kid. They sell these in dollar stores.”

George blinked. The words flew right over his head, but he was too enthralled by the small device to notice. Alarick turned back to the vault and proceeded to cut another three lines and then kick the door down. A loud, clanging thud echoed throughout the room, snapping George out of his reverie.

“Could you be any louder?”

“Oops.”

Alarick stepped through the smoking hole in the wall and motioned for George to follow.

Resisting the urge to cross himself and beg the Lord (and his father) for forgiveness, he stepped through the gap and into the vault.

Alarick stalked over to the closest case—which thankfully did not contain his mother’s nuptial crown—and fished his pen back out of his pocket. He fiddled with it for a few moments, then pointed it at the glass.

A small circle of glass later, he was reaching through it to grab what George now realised to be the Crown of Mary of Modena.

His hands began to blaze with light, and George barely had the presence of mind to throw his arms up over his eyes before the priceless, jewel encrusted crown melted into a puddle of gold and burning velvet. The diamonds loosened from their fastenings and crumbled to shining dust.

A few moments later George lowered his hands and gasped. This time, he did cross himself.

There was a figure rising out of the sparkling dust and glittering diamond shards that littered the floor. It was a man. A black man whose hands were encased in iron manacles. Whose feet were chained and shackled and bleeding. Whose eyes were bruised and almost swollen shut. So, George realised with a sinking heart, this was the man who they were to beg time and mercy from. Not an ancient monarch. Not George’s father as they had feared, but this man. This man whose blood, sweat, and life had been given to mine the diamond that would sit on the heads of unwanted royalty. A symbol of sovereignty he had never asked for.

Alarick swore, once.

“Brother,” he said, then he knelt. “I have come to ask for help.”

The man started to speak. His language was not English, but the harder George listened, the more he could understand, just as it had been with the woman’s voice on the bridge.

“—must refuse. I will not serve them in death as I did in life. I have my dignity. Where is yours?”

Alarick bowed his head.

“I am not asking for them,” he said. “I am asking on behalf of your descendants; those who have walked the city as free men for seven years now. For their children, and their children’s children. For all of us.”

“It is not good enough.”

“No,” Alarick said. “It is not good enough.  Nothing will ever be good enough to atone for what they did to us. For what they do to us every day.” He sighed, and looked, for the first time, incredibly, shockingly _weary_. “But we cannot stoop to their level. We cannot allow ourselves to become the barbarians, the _savages_ , they believe us to be, because then they will have succeeded. We must strive for greatness and for victory because those things are the things we were made for. We cannot re-write the past, but we can redefine the future. We must rise, brother. Because we have no other choice.” Alarick grasped the knees of the apparition, and George realized with a jolt that he was supplicating the man to grant mercy to a city that had enslaved him and his descendants and shown them nothing but violence and cruelty and the _crack_ of bloody whips in return. As Alarick knelt, suppliant to his ancestor who stood in chains, George was forcefully reminded of another supplication he had read about in the last pages of an epic. As the earth drank in the blood of the fallen, the dust blowing over frantic chariot tracks to settle in the cracks of the scorched debris that was once a great wall, an old and tired man, a _king_ , begged for his son’s mutilated body at the feet of the greatest warrior of the age. Priam and Achilles. Alarick and the—

George turned the word over in his mind. It was a word that meant many things, but also nothing at all. It was an act of complete barbarism. It was a construct that killed and abducted and lied and destroyed. It was an arbitrary decision that was completely calculated.

It was slavery.

Alarick and the slave.

But that felt so wrong. That was not a title any man would choose, and so who was George to choose it for him?

Alarick and the man made of diamond dust.

Alarick and the warrior.

Alarick and the—

“I just—” said the man, “I just wanted to farm the land I was born to and build a better future for my daughters. That was all I wanted; for them to surpass me, and to have the privilege of watching.”

A single tear dripped from Alarick’s chin, mixing with the dust on the floor that had once been the symbol of an empire. An empire built off the backs and the lives of those it had no right to.

In that instant, George wondered how hard this man would have fought for his freedom, given the chance. The image of Achilles— _aristos Achaion_ ; best of the Greeks—resurfaced. George dismissed it. Achilles would have been put to shame by the fight that smoldered within this man.

George looked into his shining, sorrowful face, and met his eyes.

He was sorry. He was so, _so_ sorry that he thought he might fall apart, but he knew to be sorry wasn’t enough.

 _Nothing will ever be good enough to atone for what they did to us_ , Alarick had said

 _I will do_ everything _within my power to right this grievous_ wrong, he thought.

The man nodded.

“How much time do you need?” he said.

 

***

 

 

Wind whipped around George’s face, tearing at his hair, and chilling his skin. His city spread out before him, lights twinkling, river rushing, smoke and coal dust settled like a blanket over all of it.

In the end, the man had given them a year. The time stretched out ahead of him, brittle and uncertain, a rope bridge strung across a perilous gorge, weighed down with uncertainty, barely high enough to escape the looming obstacles armed with gnashing teeth and flashing eyes that peered out from the dark, asking things of him he was not yet able to give.

A year. Anything could happen.

They were standing on the roof of Buckingham House. After their destruction of the crown and their meeting with the ghost, they had returned here, to the place it had all started. He felt no vertigo, only a strange sense of calm; like one chapter was closing on his life while another began. Pages blank but for the numbers counting down.

“You feel it,” Alarick said. “Time has us in her clutches.”

George nodded. “I feel it.”

“If I do this, we freeze the city for a year, a week and three days. No undoing it. No stopping it. No turning back.”

George nodded, breathing in, the sharp, chilling wind like knives in his lungs. He thought about the things that he had feared, the things that waited just out of sight—hidden within the year to come—and started to come to grips with the idea that they were now put off in favour of a two-man war against a god who wanted to turn the city into a underworld, and then rule it. It was a worthy cause, of _course_ it was, and it wasn’t as if he’d had much of a choice… it was simply very strange and so extraordinary that he considered again the idea that he might be living inside a dream. His hands shook.

Of course, they shook more often than they were still, these days, but he had nothing he wanted to hold on to.

“Do it,” he said.

Alarick stretched out his hands, palms cupped together and glowing as though he held a firefly or a wayward fairy inside them. He began to chant, the words low and guttural. _Primordial_ , George thought. Then he opened his hands.

An orb of blue light drifted out, floating lazily towards the sky. It was impervious to the wind, and to gravity, and completely mesmerizing to watch. It disappeared through the low, grey clouds, winking out like a star at dawn.

A distance _boom_ sounded _,_ and then there was a crackle in the air like the electricity that gathers before a lightning strike, and then there was nothing, until—

Brightness. Cobalt blue and blinding, the light spread over the sky like the orb had turned into a firework, the dazzling offshoots of light blazing like shootings stars towards the earth.

 _Is this what Lucifer looked like?_ George thought wildly. _Blazing holy fire like a comet’s tail, silent as he fell from heaven?_

The lights connected with the ground, sinking into the earth around the perimeter of city. A blue dome was visible above the clouds for mere moments, as though London had been miniaturized and imprisoned within a glowing sphere of blown glass, half of which lay below the soil.

When time stopped, George felt it. He felt the way the magic took root in the city and un-synched it from the rest of reality. He felt the magic look at him, consider his being, and then exclude him. He felt the city pause. Stopped, between one breath and another. The great beast that was London plunged into a yearlong slumber. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“It worked,” he said, and turned to Alarick, but the man was gone. He shook his head. There were footprints in the light dusting of frost that had gathered on the roof, so Alarick’s path was easy to follow. It looked as though he had left in a hurry, skid marks and scuffed ice detailing his escape.

George turned away from the soft dawn light—the dawn that would not break for a little over a year, now—and followed in Alarick’s footsteps.

It seemed that was all he ever did these days, all he had ever done; follow in the steps of men named Amadi, and hope they cared enough to spare him, in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifty-Two

[planet: Aonia]  + [The Palace of Mirrors ]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

Asha had been healing in a suspended animation pod for two days, and Obi hadn’t left her side. He was also going out of his mind. Shifting in the bedding that he’d dragged onto the floor medical bay he propped his hands under his chin and looked at her. Clumps of glowing fluid were coagulating by all of her injuries, a particularly large mass by her upper right arm, where she’d been shot. The doctors were saying she would heal perfectly and be back to full strength after enough time in the pod but had been infuriatingly vague about exactly how much time ‘enough’ was. But it wasn’t her physical condition Obi was most worried about.

 _I’m sorry_ , she’d said. _I’m sorry for everything_.

He buried his head in the blankets, closing his eyes. What a mess. What a colossally gargantuan unmitigated clusterfuck of a situation.

“Wow,” he said.

The ward was silent. Asha was the only patient, which didn’t strike Obi as odd. The members of the Order were clearly magically gifted and could most likely heal any scrapes with a tattoo and the magic word that activated it.

The Order. _The Auspex Order_.

He reached into one of his inner pocket and withdrew a familiarly crumpled faded slip of paper. He scanned the passage circled in blood, then flipped the page. The sentence scrawled on the back had been confusing him and haunting him for nearly four years now. It had seemed so vague and far away, and nothing at all to do with him.

He remembered what the Sentinel had said. _Order is the Architect._ The words were looped around every column and engraved above every doorway in the building. He thought that if he ever decided to venture beyond its walls he would find them carved into the sky.

The page hummed with energy in his palm. The blood stains and rust red fingerprints begging him to guide the slip of paper home. He read the words aloud and tried not to let them mean anything.

_Order is not the Architect. You are._

He felt chilled to his core and stripped down to his most basic functions. He thought, he breathed, he saw. He felt his hearts beating and the blood pumping through his veins, felt his lungs expanding and contracting and pulling air down into the cavity of his chest. He wondered whether Lei would deign to show her face anytime soon. She had told him she needed to regain her strength and rebuild her defenses and subsequently hadn’t been seen in two days. He didn’t know what to think.

Soft footsteps sounded in the hall. Obi sat up, peering through the darkness, trying to make out the visitor.

The Sentinel stepped into the low light of the ward and bowed slowly.

“Your friend is doing well. She is much changed since the last time I saw her.”

“What do you want from her?” Obi asked quietly.

The Sentinel looked at him, “I want her to fulfill her destiny, and save us. You heard what is to come. You know she is important.”

“Why does it have to be her? Why can’t you just save yourselves?”

“Because that is not what was foretold.”

Obi slumped into the bedding, scowling.

“You look just like him.”

“Who?” Obi asked incredulously.

“Alarick. Your father. When you first appeared, I thought for a moment he had come back to us. Then I remembered that time ages you Humans quickly and that he would be far older by now.”

Obi swallowed thickly. “I am _nothing_ like him.”

The Sentinel considered him for a few, long moments. “I think that remains to be seen.”

A soft beeping sound accompanied by a low gurgling broke the silence. Obi turned around. Asha’s pod was draining of fluid, the glowing clumps slowly seeping away. Her arm looked smooth and unblemished. Obi’s eyes widened. The healing process had somehow removed Asha’s tattoos. She was unmarked.

For a single second he saw himself emerging from the pod in her place, gleaming fluid on his skin, left arm flexing sinew wrapped in flesh and skin instead of gleaming metal. He rejected it.

As the last of the fluid drained away, Obi turned back to the Sentinel, but he had gone.

A hissing sound signaled the dropping of the pod’s screen, and another set of footsteps rounded the corner. The young medic who had overseen Asha’s placement in the medical bay was coming to see her out of the pod. Obi gathered his blankets off the floor and moved to the side. Soon, Asha was laid out on a stretcher, her eyes peacefully closed, her breathing shallow and content, her hair still sticky with fluid. There was a metaphor about rebirth in there somewhere, but Obi was too tired to dig for it.

“Is she all, you know, fixed?” he asked.

“Yes. Now she must wake.”

The medic pulled a short syringe from his bag and prepared it, before sliding it gently into Asha’s arm and pushing the clear liquid into her bloodstream.

“Step back,” he said.

Asha jerked awake with a start, her breathing hitching, eyes fluttering wildly, bloodshot and small-pupiled. Obi rushed forward.

“Asha,” he whispered, “it’s alright, you’re alright, I’m here.”

“Obi?”

“I’m here, I’ve got you.”

She grabbed onto his arms, pulling him in for a hug. Her body shook, her bones felt fragile.

The medic cleared his throat softly. “She is discharged now. You can take her to her room.”

Obi nodded his thanks and hooked an arm around Asha’s waist.

“I can walk on my own, thanks.”

He smiled in relief, rolling his eyes and gripping her waist tighter in support. “Welcome back.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifty-Three

[planet: Aonia]  + [The Palace of Mirrors ]  +  [year: 6078]

 

 

 

There was a chip in the ceiling of the room Asha had been given to use. She was staring at it now, at the rough grain of the exposed stone and the way it contrasted with the polished whiteness of its unblemished surroundings, and the way one edge was crooked and the other straight and sharp as the blade of a knife. She blinked, and the chip blurred, her eyes stinging. Curling up onto her side, she closed her eyes, letting hot tears leak down her cheeks. Her face felt scrubbed raw by the salt, as though the tears fell on open wounds. Her whole body felt wounded, as did her heart, and the tears weren’t so much confirmation of this as they were a symptom of the loneliness she felt like a crushing weight. Asha had never felt more desolate, more alone. Sadness had opened up like a yawning pit inside her and was destroying any other emotion besides the ones that fueled it, the blackness swarming with things like guilt and regret and a shame so visceral it was eating her alive.

She was not angry. It surprised her that she was not therefore empty.

“Asha?”

Obi’s voice drifted towards her through these fog-like thoughts, piercing the soft bubble of self-pity that had expanded around her. He was whispering. Asha realized slowly that it was the middle of the night.

“Yeah?” she whispered.

“Come with me, I want to show you something.”

She shook her head.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

She exhaled, watching her breath stir the short hairs on her curiously unmarked forearm.

“Of course, I do.”

“Then come with me.”

 

***

 

The halls of the Order were silent. Silky, purple moonlight streamed through arching windows to pool on stony floors like puddles of liquid silver. Every step she took felt like it might be her last. It was like walking through treacle. Obi shuffled next to her, matching her slow pace step for listless step.

“We’ve come a long way,” he said. “Both of us have. I can’t tell for the life of me whether it’s been for better or not, but we’ve done it.” He looked at her sideways. “Asha, it’s very easy to blame yourself for things you need not blame yourself for, and it’s even easier to regret things you shouldn’t, and be ashamed of things you shouldn’t, and look back on the past with the benefit of hindsight and remake a single decision a thousand, thousand times until you’re satisfied with it.”

She was holding her breath.

“The hard thing,” Obi continued, “is acceptance. Forgiveness. You’re allowed to accept your own apology. You will learn to live with the consequences of your actions. Which in this case, are terrible, but also… not.” He sighed and stopped walking. They were paused outside a door that Asha would have missed had Obi not singled it out. “You were merciful, Asha. She was suffering in incredible amounts, and you eased that suffering. You set her free. And, in doing so, you saved billions upon billions of sentient lives. Entire planets and civilizations and religions and—” he broke off, his voice choked with sudden emotion. “You’re a hero, really” he whispered. “Not because you’re unafraid or unmovable, but because you _are_ afraid, and you _are_ moved, and yet you constantly strive do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. I know you would not have pulled that trigger if you were not absolutely certain it was the right thing to do. I don’t know the whole story, and I know there are things you’ve kept to yourself, but at the end of the day I trust your judgement. I trust it and I trust you so completely that I don’t _need_ to know everything. I just know you don’t deserve a life of bitter self-hatred and regret because of an action that sounds so terrible on paper, but that was the only thing you could have done in the circumstances that would have made any difference.” His eyes were bright and serious and _familiar_.

A tear rolled its way down her cheeks, stinging raw skin and biting at vulnerable flesh. “It’s just… I wonder if I was ever my own person?”

He nodded.

“It’s like… Was anything I ever did done because I wanted to do it, or because years ago someone said it would be so? I’m so painfully ordinary, I know I am, and I never _minded_ before. I just wanted to take part in something epic, just once, and then be done, but now I don’t have a choice, and everything I’ve done before now feels like the prelude to the main event. It’s like I’m losing my grip on reality, and it’s so scary, Obi. I don’t know how long I can keep this up.”

“Of course you were your own person,” he said. “You existed before all of this, and you will exist after it, too, I swear. The girl who threatened to claw my eyeballs out with her bare hands is the same girl who’s standing here now, even if it doesn’t feel like it. So is the girl who singlehandedly escaped from a high security prison facility using nothing but her wits and her skill as a pilot. And so,” he finished, “is the girl who moved heaven and earth and risked her life time and time again to save a woman she’d never met. And yes, Asha, you did save her. You did.” He squeezed her shoulder, “And you _always_ have a choice. Never forget that.”

“Thank you.” Asha said. “For everything. For trusting me. For taking a chance on me, for caring about me and laughing at my jokes and saving my life. I—Thank you.”

“Same to you, Ash, I mean it. Thank you.” He pulled her into a hug, brushing a few stray hairs from her forehead. “Now come look at this.”

He pushed open the door and Asha followed him into a room of statues.

This room was windowless, the click of the door plunging them into darkness.

Obi cursed, then a flare of blue light lit up the space, seeping into the cracks of the room, and illuminating the pale faces of the statues that had been visible moments before.

“Who are they?” Asha asked.

“I don’t know,” Obi admitted. “I can’t read any of the inscriptions, but I think… I think they might be former Order members, or something. Look.”

He walked to the far end, pushing past the solemn faced, empty eyed imitations of sentients that lined the wall, until he reached the end of the long room. Asha followed at a distance until he stopped, and she caught up. She felt keenly observed by the statues, like she was walking down an aisle in front of hundreds of spectators, even though there could not have been more than twenty sculptures in the whole room. The blue light shining from Obi’s hand created a sphere of safety; Asha was sure that if she stepped out of the light’s reach, the statues would grab for her, stony fingers wrapping around her throat, struggling limbs, stone lips widening into grimacing smiles, teeth glinting, razor sharp and bloodstained in the light—

“Asha?”

“Sorry, I’m listening. What did you want to show me?”

He gestured to the statue in front of them. This one was carved from black marble and was the only sculpture that had its back to them. It was also undeniably human, or at least human shaped. It’s back was sculpted bare, so masterfully crafted that Asha could imagine reaching out to touch the skin and finding it soft and warm and pliable. She could see sharp jut of the shoulder blades, and muscles cording under the skin. Vertebrae swelled smoothly, and then dipped, each bone like its own tiny mountain, tracing the spine downwards to the small divots at the base of the spine, and then… rough-edged, unrefined rock, untouched and crude, almost. It was as though the man had been waiting in the rock for someone to set him free, and then decided that reliance on others was overrated and began to haul himself out, limb by marble limb.

“It’s unfinished,” she said, and it felt like a tragedy.

“I know,” Obi said. The quality of his voice told her that he was just as sad about it as she was. “Turn it around.”

Asha moved forward, feeling more grounded in her body than she had since A’lkari.

Her hands met cool stone. She pushed with one hand and pulled with the other, rotating the statue on its base, until it wobbled to a stop, face bared to the light and so utterly shocking that Asha felt blood rush from her head.

She gasped, unable to tear her eyes away.

“Obi? How is this possible?”

He was looking at his feet. “It isn’t me,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s my father.”

She looked back at the statue. It wore Obi’s face, that much was true, except…

“He looks anguished,” she said. “I’ve never seen you look like that.”

He shrugged. “There are lots of things you haven’t seen.”

She closed her eyes, opened them.

“He doesn’t have your scar,” she said. “And he looks a lot less kind than you.”

“He looks very young,” Obi said. “Looks my age.”

Asha nodded. “You have… older eyes.”

He turned to look at her, those same eyes creasing at the corners like they did when he was anxious.

“I have to leave, Asha.”

She felt hollowed out by the inevitability of his whispered words; felt the simplicity of the time’s passage like a crushing weight upon her weakened shoulders. Felt the realization that had been brewing for weeks now, the one that yelled obscenities in her sleep about how she did not want to be alone, _not again_ , rear its ugly, jealous head.

“I know.”

“I need him. He needs me. I’ll be back, though. You know I will.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she didn’t. With shaking hands, she reached upwards, fingers scrabbling at the pendant around her neck.

“Asha—”

She glared at him, undoing the clasp and letting the chain fall in a whisper of metal to lie in her palm.

“Take it,” she said. “And come back.”

She watched his face crumple and realized she would miss him every single day that he was gone, and that if she was going to be saving even the tiniest part of this universe, she would be doing it for him, and for Aziza’s memory, and for her mother, and for the way that they made this life so much brighter for everyone else.

They hugged and didn’t speak. In the space between one teardrop and the next, Lei materialized at the far end of the room, touching down in a rustle of fabric, bangles jingling softly, eyes glowing like a predator’s in the dark. 

Asha felt the unspoken command projected over the airwaves.

_It is time. Let go._

She detached herself from Obi and placed a hand over her heart.

“It’s been an honor serving with you,” she said, “cadet.”

Her voice barely shook, and while her gaze was slightly watery, she knew herself to be unshakable.

Obi wiped the last tears from his eyes and mirrored her action. She found herself suddenly desperate to memorise every inch of his face. The scar that flicked wickedly from jaw to outer-eye; the white teeth and the wide nose; the grey eyes and the determination in them. His kind, _kind_ smile and the way it did not weaken him but made him infinitely stronger instead.

“The honor was all mine.”

Obi clutched the pendant tightly, before slipping into an inside pocket, and taking a step back. Lei was directly behind now, no longer in the shadows, but not quite out of them, either.

“I’ll miss you,” Asha said. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Obi smiled his brilliant smile, and sharply—acutely—Asha felt the version of herself that had been clinging to this life for so long disappear. She had been a stubborn, fiercely selfish, furious girl whose unquenchable anger had fueled her every movement, who couldn’t love something without vast quantities of personal sacrifice. Now, as she looked at Obi’s smile; winning and bright and so _hopeful_ in the face of all this hardship, she realized he loved her without any kind sacrifice, and that she loved him in the same way. It was at this moment that she felt another girl step into herself; the next in an infinite line of selves that Asha would shed throughout her life as she grew and grew and grew. This girl was more cautious, not because she was more afraid, but because she found she had significantly more to lose. She not only recognized the merit in doing good things for others regardless of how it might benefit herself, but she actively _wanted_ to do them, especially if it meant people like Obi could live out their lives in happiness. This girl was not a murderer. She was just as Human as she had been before. Perhaps more so. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Obi replied.

He made a fist with his metal hand, blue light shining from in between his fingers, then opened it, offering his empty palm to her. Rebellion.

_I will survive, and so will you._

Asha began to cry.

He closed his eyes and took Lei’s hand. It was there, in the moment between his being and sudden, impossible _non_ -being that Asha saw that look of calm and peace spread across his features; the very same look she would strive to wear herself one day and be honest and _deserving_ in wearing it. The blue light vanished, plunging the room into darkness. Obi was gone.

She steadied herself on the arm of one of the statues and closed her eyes.

The road ahead was long, and it was perilous, and she was all alone. The darkness pressed in on every side, friend indistinguishable from foe, and ally a word she had known once, but that was now inapplicable to her life; a distant figure on a distant shore, shrouded in mist and indefinitely unreachable. But Asha was a Knight of Legend Order, now, and had never been the type who bowed to circumstance. The blood that ran in her veins was made to temper steel and forge armies out of dust. She could call the elements with a word and face a tyrant in his throne room.

Her name was Asha Dhaka; thief, Human, prophesized. It was said that she would save the world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifty-Four

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

When Obi opened his eyes, he thought for a second he was looking into a mirror of the future.

His own face stared back, leaning over him, older, more lined with time. His reflection wore the same frown—though this one was nestled between two _whole_ eyebrows—and the same smile, though one of his front teeth was slightly crooked and chipped in the corner. His scar was gone, his cheek relatively smooth. Smaller scars criss-crossed and slashed their way across his face and neck, though. Silvery lines describing a life Obi had not yet lived. He closed his eyes.

“Dad?”

His whisper was louder than his memory of him; the crack in his voice sharper than the wounds left by their past.

Alarick Amadi offered him his hand. Obi looked at him for a long moment before knocking it aside and standing by himself.

 

 

 

“You’re alive,” he said, and found himself unsurprised. He realised quietly that Alarick had never felt dead to Obi, not really—he had just felt cold. He also realised that absence was not the same thing as permanent vanishment ( _I’ll miss you. Don’t keep me waiting.)._

It couldn’t be, he thought. _Not now_.

Alarick nodded. His face was impassive. His eyes carefully blank, every feature corralled and controlled to give nothing away.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I missed you, son.”

“No,” Obi replied. “No, you’re not.”

An unnamable emotion was welling up in Obi like salt water pushing through bedrock; fractious and briny and terrifyingly strong. He clenched his jaw.

“Would it kill you to be sincere?” Obi asked. “Drop the façade. Tell me you don’t care and that you’re here to serve your own selfish end.”

“I—”

“You left me,” Obi said, the saltwater growing to a tremendous and terrifying pressure inside his chest and pushing outwards—every tiny scrap of sadness and rejection, every plume of anger and all the carefully contained rage he had accumulated over the years was being forced to the surface. “You left me, and you didn’t come back. I was orphaned at eight years old and forced to find another family in this—this _insidious_ city that already saw me as so vastly lesser. I grew up so fast. I was—” he broke off, trying to get his breathing under control. “ _Terrible_ things happened to me.”

“Son—”

“Don’t call me son,” Obi said. “You gave up that right the night you vanished into thin air.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know what I was, _who_ I was. I went through my Anchoring alone and unaided and now I’m _sick_. I’m so sick I can’t use this power I’ve been granted to see the things I want to or live my life the way I so badly want to live it.”

“There is an explanation.”

“ _I don’t care_.”

His father took that exclamation like a weathered cliff face takes a storm. Obi wondered how long he had until the mask eroded and crumbled into the waves. He wondered if he would live to see it. If anyone would.

“And I get it, you know,” he continued. “I get how strong the urge to jump must have been all those years, but you made a commitment when you had a child, and that’s got to be stronger than the pull of the universe. It’s got to be, or… or…”

“Or a kid grows up too fast in a city that’s out to get him and comes to resent his own father so much he decides it’s better to assume him dead than face the reality he’s alive and has simply abandoned him,” Alarick said. “I know there’s nothing I can do to make up for my mistakes, but I can try, and I _will_. I’m sorry, Obi. I’ve never been so sorry in entire life.”

Obi was silent. So, his father knew all of this, _understood_ all of this, but still had stayed away when Obi had needed him most. It was not enough that his father regretted what he’d done. Obi knew this firsthand; he regretted leaving George every single day, even if the first time had been driven by necessity and the second had been beyond his control. He regretted it so much that he knew even on his deathbed the regret would still ache in him.

“I hated you,” he said. “I hated you so much.”

Alarick Amadi lowered his eyes. Obi realised then that the titan of a father he’d imagined for all the years he’d been alone had never existed. And if he had, he was long gone—worn away by whatever demon it was that had found him as a boy out among the stars and was eating him alive. And Obi was sure there was one.

“But I don’t hate you anymore.” Obi felt that truth in his bones. “I’m too tired.”

Alarick looked up, his grey eyes solemn. Obi wondered for moment if his father really was a mirror of his future. Then, he decided that his future was his own, no matter how big a hand the man in front of him had had in limiting it. 

The door cracked opened. Father and son turned around in unison. A hand curved round the door frame, pale fingers pausing at the edge. The chandelier’s candlelight glinted off a golden ring, Obi’s heart jumpstarted, thudding to a crescendo in his chest. His blood became gasoline inches away from a spark—

“George?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Fifty-Five

[planet: Earth]  +  [city: London]  +  [year: 1812]

 

 

 

As George walked to the door of his rooms, he resolved to get at least twelve uninterrupted hours of glorious sleep—as unaided by laudanum as possible. He paused at the door, hearing voices inside.

Voices, plural. His heart stopped.

“I’m too tired,” came a muffled voice.

Heart; restarted.

George put one palm to the door and quietly began to lose his mind. Reaching a hand into his hair, he withdrew the circlet of gold that rested there. He shrugged off his jacket, military medals he had never earned clinking to the floor. When he faced the man inside that room, he would face him as an equal. He looked at the ring on his finger. Considered removing it, then was immediately ashamed at having thought that; keeping things from each other wasn’t part of the way this thing between them worked. It was the truth or nothing. It was everything in, or nothing at all. Otherwise, what was the point?

He pushed open the door.

Distantly, George heard his name slip from Obi’s mouth into the space between them, like a prayer to a distant deity; unexpectant of an answer but wishing desperately for one regardless.

“You came back,” he said simply. It was all he could manage.

“I—of _course_ I came back.”

George heard Alarick leave them but didn’t turn to watch him go. His entire world view, his entire _world_ , had narrowed to encompass the person standing in front of him and nothing else.

“You left,” he said. “After we—” he broke off, blood rushing to his face. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

Obi closed his eyes, drawing in a shaky breath.

“That wasn’t what was meant to happen.”

George felt anger flare, red hot and scorching.

“What the fuck,” he asked, quietly, “did you _mean_ to happened, then?”

 “I was planning to take you with me,” Obi said. “I wanted you to—I wanted to show you the universe.”

 _But when I asked, you refused!_ George thought, uncomprehending. _I don’t understand_.

“I wanted to be the one to show you the universe. I wanted… I _wanted_. Plain and simple. I wanted you, and I wanted to be happy. God, I wanted _you_ to be happy. I would never have left on purpose. Not after the first time.”

_But you did._

Obi’s eyes flickered to the ring. George resisted the urge to clench his hands into fists and met his grey, inscrutable gaze. He wondered when he’d stopped being able to read Obi’s feelings like an open book. Wondered if maybe Obi had just increased his proficiency at hiding them.

“Did I cross your mind once or twice?” Obi asked. His face was impassive, but his eyes were bright. “Did, you—” he paused. Breathed, “In the midst of all this…”

 _All this what?_ George thought desperately. _The crown on my head, or the god slipping between my desperate, snatching fingertips? The country under my feet oozing blood like it’s somehow expendable, or the king at my back and the queen at my side? In the midst of all this I was driven nearly to madness with how much I missed you. I hated you for it. Part of me still does, I think._

“…did you think of me, at all?”

Obi voice was quiet, steeled already for an answer in the negative.

George tried to wrench the words he wanted from the foggy cavern of his mind. He felt suddenly hollowed out—by the sadness rising in him, by the drugs, he didn’t know. So, he offered the only thing he could: the truth. “You didn’t just cross my mind, Obi. You never left.”

George’s thoughts were mist, ungraspable, and in them he saw the shapes of the things he had dreamed in Obi’s absence. A man in hero’s armor; the billowing sails of the ships at Troy; a crown discarded. A chariot on its side, one wheel spinning; Achilles lying in a tent, waiting in vain for the news of Patroclus’ return. Wise, loyal Penelope, left behind ten years, then twenty…

And then it was all tumbling out of his mouth like a tide. “I hated you,” he said. “ _God_ , I hated you. I burned your name out of my journals and lost the box with your soul in it. I remembered every generous word and kind smile and I convinced myself they were lies. Didn’t do a particularly good job, though. There is no antidote to memory, it would seem. Not even opium. Though I admit it helps,” he could feel his hands begin to shake. “To an extent.”

“George—”

“ _You left_.” George repeated. Because it didn’t matter what Obi said, didn’t matter what he had intended, because Obi had pushed him down and kissed him and looked at him like he was everything and then— “You didn’t even say goodbye, and I—” he squeezed his eyes shut, hands curling into violent fists. “I was so… infatuated,” _pause_ , “with you,” _breathe_ , “that I blamed myself. At first. I thought it was my fault, I thought, _of course he left, there’s nothing tying him here. He has the whole of space and time at his fingertips, he does not want you_. I believed this until one day I saw the box with your soul in it and I was faced with the undeniable truth that you _did_ care for me, at least partially, yet you left regardless. That night you told me you would show me how it could be for us, and then you ran away. I may be a fool for trusting you—yes, trusting you, present tense, because I frankly do not know how to live any other way—but I am _not_ a coward. And what you did was cowardly.” He felt feverish, his skin hot and too-tight, lights too bright and Obi’s face too sad to bear. “And now you’re here and nothing is the same as it was and I fear our time together is drawing to a close, and I do not think that I can bear it.”

Obi closed his eyes.

George stared. He _hated_ this. Hated all of it. Hated it so much.

“I’m not how you remember, am I?” he whispered.

It was barely a question.

“Obi, I want—” he groaned, frustration scrawled across every inch of his face. “I want things to be good again, I want _us_ to be good again. Perhaps we should… should go to back to the way we were before.”

“We were _friends_ , before,” Obi’s voice was hoarse, he looked undone.

“Was that so terrible?”

George’s mind was staggering towards a horrible conclusion, but elocution and articulation were strangers to him as he looked into Obi’s eyes. At the greyness of them, at the way they now gleamed with tears; bright and terribly shining as Athena’s as she gazed over the battlefield at Troy, as she meddled with the fates of mortal men and _changed them_.

Changed them.

“I want to rewind the clock,” he said, then smiled half-crazedly as he realized that Obi probably could. “I want to turn it all the way back to when things were plain and we were unafraid. I’m simply unsure whether there’s anything _left_ back there. I’m afraid that you took the person I used to be from me and now you’ve gone and lost him out in… well, out in wherever it is that you go when you tire of me.” His eyes were smarting. “You walked into my life five years ago and changed it. I still haven’t decided if it was for better or for worse, but I am altered, and it is because of you. You act like nothing gets under your skin, but you fell in love with me so hard and fast it hurt to watch, but it was alright because I was falling in love with you even faster.”

Obi looked stupefied, and suddenly George was struck with a thought so terrible it was almost debilitating; what if this really was the end of them? His mind darted back to fifteen, to the way the world had seemed limitless and unconquerable and his heart had only been used for beating, not breaking, and his hands had been steady and his blood had been clean, and his mind a whole, unbreakable thing.

Obi wiped bright eyes furiously with the back of his hand. “What could I—” his voice broke off. He tried again, “What could I _possibly_ be worth to you now that you have her?”

It was a low blow, and they both knew it—Obi’s face full of contempt and anger and disdain. Except, that it wasn’t. Not _really_. George knew Obi and so he knew what this was; a plea for help, desperation _._ He was throwing himself on George’s mercy with no idea what he wanted in return except the vague, hazy idea of salvation. George knew that look. He had seen it in the eyes of the soldiers he had visited on the peninsula; their eyes narrowed, lips curled back in derision, wrath and disgust oozing with their blood through the bandages—dust and scorn making black lines in the grooves of their weather worn, weary faces. _This is what you’ve done to us,_ they said in the lines of their frowns, _and we hate you_.

 _Now save us_ , they pleaded with their eyes. _Surely you owe us that?_

Obi’s eyes were pleading now, pleading for a savior, for a hero. For forgiveness. This acerbic hostility was his response to feeling in the slightest way vulnerable.

George thought of Aeneas, the great hero who hid his tears behind a mask of greatness so that his men would not lose hope as they searched for the land in which they might sow the seed of an empire.

Behind the mask that was the disgraced, lonely, almost-king of England, George IV of House Hanover thought that the boy— _man_ —standing in front of him was probably worth living for.

“I’m sorry.”

He heaved in a breath and suddenly he was doubled over. “I’m _so sorry_ , I—”

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to draw in a single steady breath. Then, impossibly, he felt arms around his own, pulling him downwards to the floor.

“It’s not your fault,” Obi whispered fiercely. “None of this is your fault. Never think that it is.”

George shuddered, his hands shaking violently. Obi slipped his fingers between George’s and held them tightly.

“I never meant to leave you.” he said. “This is all my fault. You were never supposed to remember. I don’t know what to do.”

George pressed his forehead into Obi’s shoulder, breathing him in. There was no denying how badly he wanted this, no denying how at home he felt pressed up against him like this, how safe and secure, how untouchable.

He felt Obi sigh. Felt the beat of his hearts and the sorrow pouring off him in waves.

“The night I left, I meant to return.”

_Don’t lie to me, don’t—_

“But I was removed by force from this time by things wildly out of my control. I—I would never have left you. I would rather have died than do it again without telling you. I was deposited in the exact time and place as… something I have been pursuing for half of my life. Something that will make me better. Better for you. God, I want to be _so_ _good_ for you.”

George felt heat rush to his face, but he forced himself to think rationally.

“The cure to your sickness. That’s what you were seeking.” It wasn’t a question.

Obi froze.

“How—oh, of course. _He_ told you.”

“It should have been you.”

“I—yes. It should have been.”

George lifted his face from Obi’s shoulder to look him in the eyes.

“You don’t need to make yourself better. I—" he flushed, “You know how much I care for you, don’t you?”

Obi made a strangled noise.

“Every single piece of you is precious to me, but it is _you_ that I value above all else. The you that lives inside the body. Flesh and blood, muscle and sinew… these are all important, yes, but not as important as the soul that they house. You could have any body, healthy or sick, it wouldn’t matter to me as long as it was you on the inside.”

“So… you would still like me if I looked like Alastair?” Obi asked, nodding solemnly. “How noble.” His lips pursed, repressing a smile.

George rolled his eyes. “You’re insufferable, and definitely not that shallow, and you know what I meant. Never feel like you have to change any part of yourself for me. By all means get your cure for yourself, but make sure that truly is why. Promise me.”

Obi lowered his eyes.

“You—” he faltered, “You deserve the best. I want to give it you. If I’m…”

“Obi.”

He sighed, running a hand over his head.

“I promise.”

“Good.”

They looked at each other. Truly looked.

“I can’t believe I’m really here.”

“I cannot quite believe it either.”

Obi pulled him closer, untangling their hands to card his fingers through George’s hair.

“You cut your hair,” Obi said.

George made a small noise of agreement before reluctantly relinquishing his death grip on Obi’s coat and sitting back on the floor, his feet resting either side of Obi’s knees where he knelt opposite him. George felt heat rushing to his cheeks. He just… he wanted to look at him.

“Do you like it?” he asked, struck with a sudden shyness he had not felt in years.

Obi smiled delightedly, before leaning forward and running his hands through it again, messing it up.

“S’alright.”

George felt such a rush of unbridled affection for the boy sitting opposite him that for a fleeting moment he sincerely thought his heart might combust inside his chest. He became very aware, suddenly, of Obi’s hand, and the way it had drifted from his hair to his jaw. They looked at each other. 

“I—” George started, and then stopped. He had been about to say that he didn’t mind if things went back to the way they had been before, before Obi had visited the second time and they had finally acknowledged their feelings for what they were, _truly he didn’t_ , and that all he wanted was his friendship and mutual respect, and that kind of upstanding, moral thing. But it wasn’t true.

He thought of slow kisses traded in dreams under sheets made of moonlight and shadow; of Obi’s name and the way it felt as it shuddered its way out of him; of soft carpet under his knees and hands buried in his hair; of small gasps and tensed calves, and the way it had felt to say;

“I love you.”

Obi started, his eyes blinking, mouth agape, before,

“I—I love you, too.”

They stared at each other.

George surged forward, grabbing Obi by the front of his shirt and pulling him close. Their faces were mere breaths from each other, noses bumping, foreheads pressed together. Obi grinned, and George could feel it.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Obi asked.

George nodded.

“I’m trying to remember what it was _exactly_ that Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet about all this,” he screwed his eyes shut. “Something about rough touches and,” he bumped their noses together, grinning, “blushing pilgrims, I believe.” George rolled his eyes, blushing furiously of course, and Obi laughed softly in triumph, the sound so low in his throat it was quite indecent, before taking George’s hand. “Oh, yes. I remember now. It’s the part that comes _after_ that I like: ‘Your hand is like a holy place that my hand,” he lowered his eyes, “is unworthy to visit’.” This part was said in a whisper, as he brought George’s hands to his mouth, kissing his knuckles, one by one, and George could not help but think all in a rush, _Dear God, let us be like this always. Let us never stray from each other’s sides, not in this life or the next or the one after that. I do not think I could bear it if I were here and he we’re not. When he dies, dear God, let me die also._

“‘Let lips do what hands do’, I think was the next part,” George said brazenly, and wondered how long it would take for him to get used to this.

Obi blinked in delight, and George could feel his eyelashes moving on the skin of his cheeks. He did not know whether to kiss him or weep; the pure, unadulterated sense of happiness and completion coursing through him was threatening to spill over into the whisper of space between them. In the end, he settled for neither, choosing instead to finish the line.

“‘They pray’,” he whispered.

 _Then_ he kissed him, and he was finally home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

 

 

Once there was a girl born amid chaos. It was the end of an empire, and the beginning of a prophecy, and the girl would, in turn, be mother to the one who would bring salvation, or destroy them all.

Three objects as old as her planet—her planet that would soon be nothing but smoke and bone-dust and the enduring grandness of _legend_ —had been released from their altars, scattered throughout the cosmos, and begun the arduous task of waiting. For a hero. For the chosen. For an angry girl with ice in her eyes and fire in her heart.

The baby’s first breath was choked with dust and smoke, as a fire raged around her, but the first time she opened her eyes she saw a forest. Her mother sacrificed her life so that the child could live hers, flinging her into space accompanied only by a wish and a prayer and the knowledge that prophecies have a way of protecting their participants from suffering until it is their _time_ and that suffering may serve a greater purpose. The girl grew up surrounded by a family that loved her, until that family was slaughtered and she was forced upon a ship and forced to beg for mercy, and then forced to bear a child not in spite of her ragged and desperate pleas but _because_ of them.

The girl—a woman now—escaped, eventually. She gave birth. Lived a quiet life on a quiet planet, but she was found by the people she had run from, and her child was stolen. She screamed and she kicked and she cried, but to no avail. She held a knife to her own throat and screamed that she would do it. They didn’t care. Penance, they called it, for crimes unspecified. _You belonged to us, and you ran. She belonged to us, and you took her. A double theft. Be glad it is only her we are claiming._ Their black uniforms were soon swallowed by the shadows beyond her door. White stripes on their armbands glowing like a warning.

She could not stay in the place that had seen her first love stolen from her, and so before long, she found herself standing all alone on a platform, waiting for a ship to take her far away from the suffering and the pain and all the knife-bright, pin-sharp memories. She fell in love for a second time with a man whose nature outshone the stars every night, and whose smiles were the stuff of dreaming. He smoothed over the cracks in her armor before peeling it away completely and worshipping the skin beneath.

The second time she felt the skin of her stomach begin to swell with child, panic gripped her with a vice-like fury and she fled. Her child would not possess the ability to disguise itself and would appear Human; a death sentence in Ai’Varek Thracin’s new world. Although, she thought, there is a place where the Human creatures are allowed to live in exchange for servitude. A planet no one visits, one that lies on the edge of a quadrant not too far from the station where—

It was decided. She watched in a mirror as her skin turned to brown, as the scales she had placed under her eyes sunk into her skin and the eyes above them grew closer together and smaller. Hair spiraled in curls from her head, falling softly round her face. She looked very plain, she thought. She did not mind.

She lived on Gahraan for a little under eighteen years. Her daughter grew and dared to dream, and so she did not worry for her. They weren’t happy, but they were alive. Her daughter dreamed of flying, and her mother knew it was because something inside her was straining against her perceived humanity and aching for the stars. It would be years more before she realized this ache was as intrinsic to humans as it was to newly-fledged, unknowing heirs to ancient thrones, and by then everything foretold would be history. For better or for worse.

Her daughter left her, slipping away in the night to save the sister she had never known nor met, and while Anila grieved, she knew she had kept Asha from her fate for too long, and that everything she was supposed to do she had done, and that, really, all that was left to do was wait.

But she had never been any good at waiting, and the stars were calling her home.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The End

 


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